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the little crown to prove it. It was surely better than being a stowaway, and certainly better than being the little sister; whereas Earnestine was only a mere Prefect and Georgina was… nothing, so they’d both have to bow and scrape and show respect all the time, and then perhaps they’d understand what it was like to be the youngest and never allowed to have any fun. She would have pudding without finishing her vegetables, and she would talk all the time and they’d have to listen for once.
    But not until after a snooze, she thought, because it had been such an exciting day.

Chapter III
    Miss Deering-Dolittle
    Earnestine felt warm, cosy and safe. A heart beat strong and steady nearby, its deep resonance comforting, and her body gently rocked by waves of breathing: in, out, in, out...
    And then she became sharply aware of her dreadful situation. She was snuggled up with a man, her face against his chest and his arms actually around her. She jerked up and scuttled away leaving a trail in the dust across the floorboards.
    “It’s all right, Fräulein, they’ve gone.”
    Gone! But they were still here: Kroll, Metzger and that wretched Pieter, particularly Pieter, whose comforting embrace was now safely well over on the other side of the loft space.
    “Oh!” she realised what he meant, what he thought she was afraid of, and then she realised that she was afraid. That shivering last night had been terror, pure and simple, and clearly something to get under control. Five hundred lines: I must not be afraid, in Greek; that ought to do it.
    Pieter glanced at the loft hatch: “We hope.”
    “Where’s the March Hare?” Earnestine asked.
    “Schneider is guarding below,” said Kroll.
    Pieter corrected him: “We don’t know.”
    The loft was dark, but light shone in sharp pencil beams from a variety of holes in the roof. The floorboards were sound and there were crates arranged neatly. The inn used this space for storage.
    Earnestine idly cut a vertical line into the floorboard with her nail, two peaks next and then a ‘V’ for a ‘U’. She stopped herself: no time to do lines. I must not do lines.
    “What were those things?” she asked. “Ghouls?”
    The men exchanged glances, clearly not wanting to explain. Eventually Kroll told her.
    “Die Untoten.”
    “Untoten?”
    “Not alive.”
    “Undead,” said Pieter.
    “This is the age of enlightenment,” Earnestine said. “Steam trains, clockwork machines, science… not a time of superstition and demons.”
    Pieter nodded: “Precisely.”
    “We have to go,” said Kroll.
    No–one replied: they all just looked at the closed hatch.
    “The Oberst is right,” said Pieter. “Those creatures can’t reason like we can, but their masters will work it out sooner or later.”
    He reached for the handle, but Metzger beat him to it.
    “I’ll go,” Metzger said. He opened the hatch and ducked his head through the floor to look around. “Clear.”
    They took the ladder, fed it down through the opening and then Metzger disappeared.
    “We’ll stay together,” said Pieter.
    “Metzger can scout ahead,” said Kroll.
    “We stay together,” Pieter insisted.
    Earnestine was last to leave their sanctuary.
    The inn was different now, ominous. There were signs of battle, broken chairs, discarded weapons, splatters of dark stains that could be spilt claret, but Earnestine knew that they weren’t. Downstairs in the lounge it was the same, although the barricades had been pushed aside.
    “No bodies,” Metzger said.
    “The stables were round the back,” Kroll said.
    The rear room, another area for people to drink, was covered in broken glass. Some doors with windows in the French style leading to a terrace were smashed. It would have been lovely in summer. This was why the untoten had breached the defences here; the opening had been too wide to barricade.
    The chill air outside was clean, invigorating and fresh. Earnestine closed her eyes and let it fill her lungs