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stumbling along behind her. Lightning flashed through the window at the far end, and Amelia sped up. Turning the bend after the last guestroom, she felt the cupboard’s handles and pulled.
    Mary had already taken armloads of towels and blankets down to the Scouts, and at first Amelia felt only bare shelves. But climbing up on the bottom shelf, she reached the very top and pulled down a slab of folded material. She had no idea what it was, and didn’t care. Roughly shaking it out, she wrapped Charlie from head to toe and started rubbing at him through the fabric.
    After a minute or two he started to relax a bit, and then was able to help Amelia and finish off his own legs. Finally, he emerged from under the cloth and Amelia heard it fall to the ground.
    â€˜Are you OK?’ she whispered.
    â€˜I wouldn’t want that to happen to anyone,’ he said in a shaky voice. ‘I even wish I hadn’t joked about Sophie T …’
    They crept back along the corridor toward the lobby, Charlie carrying the cloth and occasionally rubbing at his skin and gasping. It seemed darker than ever now that Amelia didn’t have an emergency to focus on. Down in the library, with so many people and candles together, she’d started to feel a bit safer from Krskn. Up here, alone with Charlie in the back of the hotel, the full sense of danger flooded back to her. Dad was a prisoner, Grawk had run off, and who knew where Mum was. James was a wreck, and Tom was in his cottage, and might as well have been separated from them by an ocean.
    Amelia shivered and kept walking. They were about halfway along the corridor now, and the candles in the lobby below gave just enough light for Amelia to make out the railing around the gallery.
    A shadow stepped out from the wall – a black shape so nearly invisible against the gloom that Amelia wasn’t sure what she’d seen, only that it moved . Charlie sucked in a breath, and Amelia knew he’d seen it too.
    â€˜It’s OK,’ said a low voice. ‘It’s me.’
    â€˜Lady Naomi?’ said Charlie.
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Really?’ said Amelia. ‘We can’t see you. And even if we could, so what? A holo-emitter changes your voice, too, doesn’t it?’
    â€˜True,’ said the shadow. ‘But a holo-emitter wouldn’t know we watched together as the Brin-Hask destroyed your kitchen in a battle against cyborg rats.’
    â€˜Good point,’ said Charlie.
    â€˜A holo-emitter wouldn’t know that,’ Amelia admitted. ‘But Krskn could have easily tortured the information out of the real Lady Naomi.’
    â€˜True again,’ said the shadow, ‘although I’d like to think I wouldn’t make it easy for Krskn, even under torture. Very well, Amelia – you choose a question for me. Something Krskn wouldn’t have thought to get out of me.’
    Amelia thought hard.
    â€˜What’s your secret research about?’ Charlie said.
    The shadow laughed. ‘Nice try, Charlie.’
    â€˜Where was my brother the first time he saw you?’ said Amelia.
    â€˜On the steps at the front entrance to the hotel,’ said the shadow. ‘He was wearing a Robotics Club jumper from his old high school and humming to himself.’
    â€˜Well …’ said Amelia. ‘I don’t know about the humming, but yes, that’s right.’ She felt awkward now. ‘Sorry. No offence.’
    â€˜None taken,’ said Lady Naomi. ‘It was extremely wise to check. I have something for you, by the way.’
    Amelia stepped forward, straining her eyes in the dark. No matter how hard she tried, Lady Naomi was still just a vague shape, black on black. Amelia trailed her fingers along the wall to guide her and moved toward the gallery, Charlie beside her.
    â€˜This will be a shock,’ said Lady Naomi, ‘but I need you to keep quiet as you absorb it. I heard all the noise down there