In the corner of the room there was a small cheery kitchen with yellow wooden shelves. These held a rather impressive collection of teapots – at least a hundred that Willow could see – along with countless stacks of cups and saucers in shades of sky, plum and canary. She couldn’t help wondering why one person would need so many. Next to a wide window was a wooden bed covered with a very lumpy and patchy blue-and-yellow quilt, where Nolin Sometimes put Harold down.
‘Welcome,’ he said, opening the window so that Feathering could peer inside from the branch where he’d perched.
‘Pepper tea?’ he asked the dragon.
‘Ah yes, it’s been centuries – I’d love a cup, if you don’t mind?’
‘It’s no bother,’ said Sometimes, fetching a bucket for Feathering, taking down a sky-coloured teapot and turning to go into the kitchen. There was a loud crash as the teapot shattered on the floor, followed by a thump as Nolin Sometimes keeled over backwards, his blue eyes suddenly white and cloudy.
‘Not again!’ cried Willow, rushing over to kneel beside him and trying to wake him up.
‘What’s happened?’ cried Feathering, trying to peer through the window, his large golden eye filling up most of the frame.
‘He’s fainted again!’
Harold roused himself off the bed, unsticking his tongue from the coverlet with some effort. He landed with a thud and proceeded to howl at the sight of Nolin Sometimes’s prone figure surrounded by shards of broken crockery – which at least explained why he had so many teapots.
‘It’s all right, Harold,’ said Willow, patting the dog.
‘’Tis not all right!’ harrumphed Oswin. ‘We’ll starve at this rate.’
It was a full minute before Sometimes stirred, then he shouted, ‘CAPTURED!’ and sat up very fast to look at Willow, which was incredibly eerie as his eyes were still pure white. Suddenly his eyes changed back to blue and his hands started tearing at his wild white hair.
‘Moreg Vaine was CAPTURED BY THE BROTHERS OF WOL? You don’t think you could have mentioned that FROM THE START?’
Willow’s mouth gaped open. ‘Oh. Um … yes,’ she conceded. ‘I was just getting to that part …’
Nolin Sometimes’s eyes were nearly popping their sockets. ‘Tuesday has gone missing. Stolen, most likely, which could make our world unravel bit by bit, and the most powerful witch in Starfell has been taken prisoner, which means …’
He looked at her, then at Feathering.
Willow nodded. ‘There’s just us to get it back and save the world, yes.’
‘I was afraid you were going to say that.’
Sometimes fell away into a faint once again.
Willow sighed and started clearing up the debris. It’s what she did. She’d come from a home where everyone else had always been far too busy being self-important for chores. Chores were her thing.
She took down a new teapot, yellow this time, feeling the need for a cheering sort of colour, picked up the fallen bucket and then filled it with pepper tea for Feathering. She spied some weren leaves and decided to pop them in the teapot for Sometimes – weren flowers were known for their calming properties.
She placed the bucket of tea on a branch for the dragon, who eyed it with pleasure. ‘Just the thing – I’ve had a terrible cold,’ he said, taking a sip. A second later smoke started to curl out of his nostrils. ‘Much better.’
She took a sip of the weren tea and sat down in an armchair. From within the bag she could hear Oswin slurping the cup she’d passed him. Harold, it seemed, had decided to go back to bed.
Sometimes sat up and rubbed his head. ‘I can’t believe she’s been captured,’ he lamented, carrying on his conversation as if a full ten minutes hadn’t just passed, coming to sit opposite Willow in one of the armchairs.
Willow blinked. ‘Ah – yes, unfortunately.’
‘But how?’ he cried.
‘Well, we were entering the city of Bead—’
‘Beady Hill, yes, and then the High Master arrived!’
She frowned. ‘Oh, you saw that? Well, they had these magical—’
He nodded impatiently. ‘Manacles, yes – but she could get out of those if she wanted!’
‘Yes,’ said Willow slowly with a frown. Obviously he could just see her memory of the event for himself.
He looked from her to Feathering. ‘What I mean is – how was Moreg Vaine captured? How could she have let it happen? Surely she could have fought them off?’
‘Is she very powerful?’ asked Feathering.
Willow nodded, thinking of how thunder and lightning had ripped the sky. ‘I don’t think that they could really have captured her without her consent. I don’t know why she allowed it. I really don’t. But what I do know is that this was her plan. She wanted me to come here and find you –’ she looked at him now – ‘she thought that perhaps you could help.’
His eyes popped. ‘Me?’
She nodded. ‘She said that until we found out who took the day I couldn’t try to summon it – not until we know what we’re dealing with first.’
He blinked a few times. Then his eyes went hazy and he sank into a faint.
She sighed, took a sip of tea and shrugged at Feathering.
‘Bonkers,’ said Oswin, who’d opened the bag, and was leaning against the dragon egg, his legs crossed.
Sometimes sat bolt upright. ‘YOU ALMOST ENDED THE WORLD?’
He was obviously recalling the moment when she tried to summon the day and Moreg Vaine started to panic.
Outside Feathering boomed, ‘WHAT?’ in shock. ‘You almost ended the world?’
Willow shrugged. ‘Only almost.’
She explained that if she’d brought the day into the current reality it might have split apart the fabric of time. ‘See, that’s why I can’t try to find it just yet – we need to know who took it and why first. So, can you tell us who took last Tuesday?’ she asked Nolin Sometimes.
He rubbed his head and sighed deeply. He took a sip of his cold tea, then said, ‘It’s just not clear, and what I’m getting, well, it doesn’t make any sense!’
‘Oh?’ said Willow.
Feathering looked just as surprised. ‘What are you getting?’ he asked.
‘Something impossible – I mean, they said they were all destroyed; no one has been able to find one to even try, but …’
‘What?’
He stood up and started pacing the floor. As he spoke he spilled tea from his cup, which trailed along with his steps. ‘Well, I just keep seeing the oddest thing whenever I try to look at last Tuesday specifically. I see one thing, and I keep seeing it.’ He gesticulated with his hands, making more tea jump wildly out of his cup. ‘Which is strange because usually there’s so much – too much really – to see. But it’s like this great big emptiness and then beyond all of that it’s white, and in the distance there’s something handwritten and very old hidden in a small gilt box inside a guarded fortress.’
‘Like a letter?’ asked Willow.
Sometimes looked at her. ‘No – like a spell. A Lost Spell.’