‘Some of us run on eight,’ announces Trevor proudly.
Scarlett gives him a grin. ‘So, are you a transmorpher too, or…?’
‘Nope,’ Trevor replies happily. ‘Just chatty.’
‘Oh, how simply swell,’ says Gilde in a tone laden with the implication that it is not simply swell at all. ‘We’re all becoming great pals.’
Snow scrapes the last of her porridge into her mouth, and slams the bowl down. ‘Yes, lovely as all this bonding is, we came here to talk business. New Girl? The plans.’
Gretel rolls out a new map.
‘And what’s this pretty picture?’ Gilde asks, getting up to look.
‘The Citadel,’ replies Gretel, with a touch of pride. ‘It’s quite accurate, we used Snow’s birds and the Mirror to put it together.’
‘Oh, I’m sure it’s just super, kiddiewink, but we’re seasoned raiders, we’ve never needed no maps. If’n we was going to do it, and I ain’t saying we will, we’d be in and out before they so much as catch the onion.’
‘We’re not talking about a raid or a physical attack,’ says Gretel. ‘Not at this stage, in any case. Yes, we’re talking about a coup, but it can be bloodless. And the huntsmen have actually already shown us how it can be done.’ She gets a new sheet with what they’ve gleaned about the election and its timescale. ‘The huntsmen were able to grab power all those years ago by spreading their ideas through grassroots groups, and then by infiltrating the Citadel’s military and castle guards. We can use similar tactics, but for good. It’s already started. News spreads. People hear stories about parts of Myrsina pushing back against the huntsmen, mere villages able to put up an effective resistance. Makes them think maybe they can do the same. Gives them permission to try. And then, they hear stories that the princess is alive and well. The huntsmen are leaderless right now, the whole Citadel’s looking to see what new direction it should go in. If we can infiltrate the Citadel now, using stories and rumours instead of violence, spread the idea that maybe the tide has turned against the huntsmen, maybe enough of them can be persuaded in this moment of instability to go back to how things were, restore the crown, and…’
‘What’s that about the princess?’ Scarlett asks. ‘Wasn’t she killed?’
‘No,’ replies Snow, ‘just driven into the woods and royally trousered off.’
‘But how do you know for sure?’ Scarlett persists. ‘Have you met h… oh wait, it’s you, isn’t it?’
‘’Fraid so.’
Scarlett nudges Hex. ‘I recognised her from off the old tuppenny coins.’
Snow rolls her eyes. ‘Ugh, I can’t believe Mum made me sit for those.’
‘A princess,’ trills Gilde in a tone dripping with saccharine sarcasm, ‘in my humble little shack, well I never was so thunderstruck in all my days.’ She makes a show of straightening a candle and brushing dust off a shelf. ‘I was going to just say “no”, but considering the circumstances, and since you’ve come all this way and everything, I have to say, you changed my mind.’
‘We have?’ asks Trevor, impressed.
Gilde nods sweetly.
Snow narrows her eyes, unconvinced. ‘So, what say you now?’
Gilde dips into a deep curtsey. ‘I say no, Your Majesty.’
By the time Daisy has finished in the marketplace for the day, her money belt is heavy with silver. Hansel helps her take her cart to an inn she knows of that has a secure storage outhouse for traveling merchants’ wares. As promised, there’s enough money to get the two of them a room of their own instead of having to sleep in the outhouse with their goods. The room is up a dizzying four flights of stairs and is small but warm, with two beds and what Daisy refers to as ‘a view’, which turns out to be a view of seven different roofs. There is even enough spending money left over for something called ‘local cuisine’, whatever that is.
Even in this room so crazily high above the streets, the Citadel is still too loud for Hansel. As he sets his few clothes and belongings down on his side of the room, he is rattled by shouts and clops and clattering wheels and the pealing of several bells.
‘Is it always like this?’ he sighs.
‘Pardon?’
He raises his voice. ‘Is it always like this?’
‘Oh!’ Daisy goes to the window. ‘Um… not quite like this, actually. Something must be happening, there’s a stage down there, and bunting and stuff.’
Hansel frowns. This sounds like the sort of thing where there’s going to definitely be far too many people.
‘Did you want to go and see what’s going on?’ asks Daisy.
No. No, he really doesn’t want to. ‘We probably should,’ he says.
Daisy grins. ‘Exciting! We might be able to find some local cuisine while we’re at it.’
Hansel forces a smile. ‘Yes. That sounds… yes.’
‘Local cuisine’ turns out to be a sort of spicy sausage in a flatbread with pickled vegetables that fall out every time Hansel tries to eat it. It comes from a tiny cart on the street with no table to sit at and no cutlery. Daisy buys one for each of them, with apparently no heed whatsoever to the fact that it costs her more than most families in Nearby would normally spend on several days’ worth of food shopping.
Hansel wrestles with his local cuisine as they approach a makeshift stage that’s been set up in a square not far from their inn. This stage seems to be the source of the hubbub. At seeing a temporary platform erected in a square, Hansel feels a sudden, sharp pang of panic.
‘What are they going to do?’
‘It’s OK.’ Daisy squeezes his hand and points with a hand full of half-eaten dubious sausage at the stage. ‘Look. No stake, no rack, no pillories. They’re not going to do anything to anyone.’
They both watch the stage, eating their local cuisine. After a moment, a huntsman wearing an orange rosette walks onto it, to a polite round of applause from the waiting crowd.
‘Oh, something’s happening,’ says Daisy. ‘Maybe he’s going to sing a song?’
‘Brethren,’ cries the huntsman, ‘loyal citizens of the Citadel, it is with great honour and solemn duty that I stand before you as a candidate to be the one to guide the huntsmen and the great land of Myrsina.’
Daisy sighs, disappointed. ‘Oh. This isn’t interesting, this is politics.’
‘It’s the debates,’ says a familiar voice, from behind them. Both Hansel and Daisy turn their heads, startled. Daisy’s customer from earlier, the lace merchant’s wife, smiles back at them.
‘Oh, hello! Enjoying your baskets, are you?’
‘Very much so far, thank you. How are you enjoying our fine Citadel and its grand democracy?’
Hansel frowns at the huntsman on the stage. Even though Daisy was right and there are no signs that anything awful is about to happen to a suspected witch on the platform, something about it continues to fill him with panic. There’s something very bad about the simple wooden stage that feels as if it relates to his Hydra nightmare; he just can’t put his finger on what it is.
‘So, is this how all the new head huntsmen are chosen?’