that even possible?”
Lucy shrugged. “Nobody knows. Whether Kitty somehow passed on her powers to me when she died, or if the change started when we connected to the Source. All I know is I’m starting to sense things, lots of things that haven’t happened yet.”
“And she’ll be our greatest asset once she gets past a few teething problems.”
“Teething problems?” asked Ned, who was still reeling from the revelation about his friend.
“I’ll tell you about it later,” said Lucy.
All of a sudden the night sky looked as if it were being swallowed by darkness. The moon and every star above them disappeared, blocked out by a fast-approaching silhouette, and the roar of powerful engines.
Ned, Lucy and George looked up, George tensed and ready to fight.
A gust of wind, a blast of horns, and Ned saw two blue and cream striped zeppelin balloons coming in to land. They were tethered together and carrying a large gold-plated gondola. An intricate crest with the letter “O” had been carved in its side.
George lowered his hands and his shoulders dropped. But he was still frowning, his forehead deeply furrowed.
“Who is that?” yelled Ned over the airship’s engines.
George turned to him. “The Mirabelle’s the only ship that carries the ‘O’ of Oublier. And if the Prime of the Twelve is making an unscheduled visit – I shouldn’t wonder that trouble is close behind.”
“I know who she is,” said Ned. “She runs the Twelve, right?”
“And every circus and pinstripe in its ranks.”
“But why turn up without warning?”
“I expect she’s just found out about you, dear boy,” said George. “Either you’re in a world of trouble, or the world’s in a world of trouble.”
“What’s got into him?” whispered Ned to Lucy.
As well as having one of the filthiest cooking aprons Ned had ever seen, the clearly agitated cook also had a large set of tusks, the nose of a pig, and the hearing of a bat.
“Madame Oublier – met her, have you?” Scraggs snarled back.
“No,” smirked Ned.
“For starters she’s French. Imagine Monsieur Couteau, the finest blade in Europe; now make him more serious and a witch that has issues with dust.”
Behind him, Julius, Nero and Caligula, the circus’s resident pixies, were attempting to lay out a collection of biscuits for their important visitor. To the rest of the world they looked like performing monkeys in matching bellboy outfits and caps, but – without their glamours – to Ned and the troupe they were mischievous blue-skinned terrors. For every carefully laid out biscuit, they swallowed at least three others.
“Scraggs, old bean, calm down. She is perfectly amiable as long as everything’s clean,” chuckled George, who seemed to be enjoying the chaos enormously – and despite his troubled heart, so was Ned.
Scraggs looked down at his apron and started to sweat profusely, at which point Ned saw Caligula – or was it Nero? – dropping a full tray of chocolate eclairs on the sawdust by their feet. Scraggs responded by pulling a rolling-pin from his belt, and the three emperors bolted for the exit.
“All right, all right, that’s quite enough. Get back to the kitchen before you have a heart attack, and take your gnomes with you,” ordered Benissimo, who had finally stopped pacing the floor of the tent, though his moustache was still in full twitch.
A very relieved cook and his diminutive accomplices did as they were told. No sooner had they left the tent than Ned heard a loud gong being struck outside. Madame Oublier had arrived.
Ned leant across to Whiskers, who was still perching happily on Lucy’s shoulder.
“Not a squeak out of you. Madame O is a VIP. And if you’re there, Gorrn, that means you too.”
Something on the floor undulated and Whiskers gave Ned a short but courteous blink.
Madame Oublier entered the tent with little fuss. She was without doubt the most heavily tattooed person Ned had ever seen, in either the known world or the Hidden. She was elderly and silver-haired, much like Kitty, the troupe’s old Farseer, though with none of her pink and white garb or eccentric charm. The Twelve’s Prime was dressed from head to toe in unapologetic black. For a moment Ned felt a pang – how he wished dear Kitty was still with them and especially now.
The elderly Farseer was also slight, calm and quiet, because she did not need to be anything else. To the travelling kind, Madame Oublier’s word was law.
Behind her were two dwarven berserkers. From the plaits of their beards to the blue woad markings on their faces, Ned could tell they were high-ranking. Though small in stature, berserkers were almost unstoppable in a fight, as Ned had found out at the battle of St Clotilde’s.
Ned also knew that Oublier did not usually employ bodyguards; she was a formidable force in her own right. If she was travelling with specialist muscle, then things were indeed dire behind the Veil.
She took a seat and studied her surroundings without addressing anyone. George held his breath as she peered at a cup and saucer, probing them for any evidence of dust. There was a slight pout of the lips, her eyes flicked to Benissimo, and finally she spoke.
“Bon. Coffee, black.”
“Madame O,” said Benissimo, as he poured her a cup.
A face that had as many wrinkles as tattoos broke into a much-needed smile.
“It is good to see you, old friend, zo I wish ze times were brighter.” She looked to Ned, and her eyes softened. It was a look that ran straight through him, as if she could see right into his troubled heart.
“You are always welcome, Madame, under my or any other tent.”
Madame Oublier sipped from her cup of coffee, or at least that was how she started. What began as a sip soon turned into a violent and guttural slurp. Her eyes clamped shut, her cheeks turned pink and Madame Oublier, quite possibly the most formidable woman Ned had ever seen (besides his mum), downed the entire cup in a noisy and violent gulp. No one said a word; as much in awe as he was, Ned had to hold back the laugh that was now lodged in his throat.
It was clearly a blend that she didn’t like and, ignoring her own greedy glugging, Madame Oublier glanced at Scraggs’ assortment of nibbles with nose-curling disdain before scanning the faces at the table. One by one she looked at each of them gathered there, then lingered for a while on Lucy, who for some reason could not meet her gaze.
“How are you, child?” she asked.
“Fine, Madame Oublier, thank you,” said Lucy quietly, who at that precise moment looked anything but.
The