Over dinner back at the house, Marianne asked Toris, in an offhand manner:

"So that pie, spinach and ham and proof against curses... How did you make it?"

"I didn't do anything special," Toris said, "I just... did what I always do."

"Do you like cooking?" Arthur asked.

"Very much."

"And I bet you don't need recipes?" Marianne asked.

"I don't need them," Toris said, wondering what this was about. "I actually quite like reading them."

Arthur nodded. "And these mushrooms you just picked. Do that often?"

"Yes; but, uh, usually not til next month. How come...?"

"That's not important!" Marianne sang out. "Have you ever picked a bad one or poisoned anyone?"

"No!" said Toris, shocked at the suggestion.

"But I bet you don't say the rhyme over them to check which are good."

"What rhyme?" said Feliks. "He definitely wasn't saying any rhyme."

"I don't," said Toris. "But no one really does that do they? That's just... for children, that's just fun."

Marianne shook her head wordlessly, grinning broadly and Arthur looked incredulous. "It's not 'just fun'," he said. "Poisonous toadstools are no joke, and most everyone would absolutely need to use the old rhyme! Or some other check," he admitted, "I probably wouldn't use those words, but it's the same result: it's working a tiny bit of magic, to force the bad mushrooms to reveal themselves."

"But you don't need to do that," said Marianne. It seemed to Toris that the house was very quiet, a listening quiet. He didn't like it. "Because it's not hidden for you, is it?"

"I don't know what you're saying!" he burst out. "I can't do magic, maybe that's why I don't use the rhyme, it wouldn't work for me..."

"Maybe you can't do that kind of magic, college magic, rhymes and songs, shapes out of wire, but I am convinced Toris that you in possession of a very unusual—or at least, under-reported—kind of power. Your cooking. Would you say it's as if you were listening to the ingredients, how they want to be used, almost? That's how someone once described it. And same with plants. You could heal with plants you know if you wanted to—"

Toris had had enough. "That's—that's ridiculous! he said. "That's like, a witch in a fairytale! Everyone knows that kind of earth magic isn't REAL!"

Arthur and Marianne exchanged glances, and he suddenly realised they had been working together to box him in all through this conversation. To his horror he felt tears spring to his eyes.

"Hey hey!" It was Feliks. "Can we just drop this now? We've been walking all day, well Toris has, and I'm super tired. Let's do like we planned, back to the city tomorrow, in time for the big play. Honestly, just knowing this spell isn't getting worse or whatever, that's enough."

"Thank you, by the way," Toris said later as they lay side by side on camp beds in the large kitchen, where the big oven still gave off a pleasant heat. "For taking the pressure off like that."

"No problem," yawned Feliks. "Anyway it's true, I'm zonked and you're the one who was carrying me half the day."

"You weren't heavy," Toris said, and they both laughed.

"But seriously, thank you. I mean what have I done but get under your feet, eat your food, uproot your life and sneeze at you? I'm really sorry about all this trouble I've put you to."

"I honestly didn't think of it that way," said Toris, and found it was true. "It's been... fun, almost."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I'm just... I just wish we could do something about, you know, you."

"Mmm." Feliks sighed.

To break the lengthening silence, Toris said, "What do you suppose the palace whats to see magicians about?"

"Oh, probably some coronation preparation or some such," said Feliks, off-handedly. "You know it's not just a ceremony? There's a magic element, the monarch is like actually connected to the land?"

"Huh!" He hadn't known that. "Hey Feliks... If you don't—I mean, until you do get your memory and everything back, why don't you come and stay with us, you can work at the theatre."

"Could I?" He sounded touched and delighted.

"Yeah. We always need more hands. It's not a bad life. I don't suppose you're an actor or anything?"

"Nooo."

"Thanks be. I can't stand the actors."

Feliks laughed softly. "Thank you," he said again, and nothing else for a while.

Toris was almost falling asleep himself when he spoke again, so he could never be sure if he'd heard right.

He thought he heard Feliks say, "I wish... I wish I could. That would be... very nice..."

There was a soft thump on the bed and when Toris turned to look, Feliks was a cat again, and fast alseep.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

Toris woke from a dream of someone attacking the house with an artillery barrage to find Arthur shaking him awake.

"What time is it?" he asked groggily, and Feliks meowed.

"About six," said Arthur. "There's someone here asking for you."

"For me?" Toris threw on his shirt and rummaged for another bite of pie to turn Feliks human again.

"Come on."

In the parlour, wrapped in a blanket, hair wet, clutching a mug of tea and shivering, was Natasha.

"She must have walked all night, poor child," Arthur said softly.

Natasha heard him and nodded. "Just-tyna said you'd be here. Went to François' f-first but no one home..."

"You came to find me?" Toris asked. "Why?"

Natasha clutched her nearly empty mug more closely and rocked back and forth. "It's Ivan."

"Ivan?" He hadn't thought about him all day. His problems back at the theatre had seemed so small and unimportant in the scheme of things.

Natasha nodded. She took a deep breath. Each word seemed to cost her a great effort. "Ivan's going to do something stupid. So stupid. Have to stop him."

"What's he going to do?"

"He... I..." She began again. "Some people. Came to our house last night. To talk to Ivan. They didn't know I was there."

Of course they woulnd't, thought Toris; no one ever did notice Natasha the ghost.

"It's, it's General Zima. He's going to do a spell—tomorrow at the play. To... He's going to replace Prince Ignatius. With Ivan."

"General Zima?!" said Toris.

"The Prince!" said Arthur and Marianne together.

Feliks stared. "Can he do that?"

"A disguise?" Toris suggested.

"No, not a disguise!" Natasha said shrilly. "Ivan's going to replace him! He'll be the Prince, just as if he always had been, they said no one will know any different. And Ignatius will be—"

"Gone." Arthur swore loudly. He looked at Marianne, wide-eyed. "Yes, yes he can do that—in the theatre, with all that power of belief, well I don't need to tell you— And if he does..."

"Ivan will be sworn to the land or whatever it is at the coronation!" Toris hardly understood anything of what had just been said but he followed that far and it terrified him. "Ivan is..." he glanced at Natasha; how to explain, "not a good choice," he finished weakly.

"Then General Zima will rule through him!" Feliks cried. "It's a coup!"

"Children!" Marianne waved her arms for calm. She was wearing an embroidered dressing gown quite as fine as her day clothes. "Darlings, it is clear we must set off post-haste and do what we may to prevent this outrage. Anyway, we—" she gestured at Arthur— "must, and would appreciate your help."

Toris, Feliks and Natasha all nodded.

"The Prince is missing," Marianne announced. "That's what we were told yesterday, and why the royal summons. It seems reasonable to assume now this is all of a piece; getting Prince Ignatius out of the way before replacing him."

"Out of the way?" Toris echoed, horrified. "Is he—"

"He's missing," Arthur said. "That is as much as we can say for now."

"Our immediate task is stop the substitution this afternoon," said Marianne. "Arthur—will you drive, and I'll take the short way and brief Justyna and Darius—they're still in charge?" Toris nodded. Marianne frowned in thought. "We can't let everyone know or Zima will surely suspect and not make the attempt, but we'll need some help..."

"But, don't we want to stop him?"

"We do," said Arthur, sounding very grim, "but... we need to let him try, reveal himself as a traitor or we've absolutely no proof of anything and no power to stop him. That's what you mean, isn't it?"

"Quite," said Marianne, just as grim. "Even were we to warn the Princess Hedvika, against the chief regent, what could she do? They've already taken her brother."

Everyone was silent for a moment.

"So then!" Marianne clapped her hands and smiled a manically bright smile. "Everyone dress, breakfast in five minutes, out of the door in twenty."

It was a good, if abbreviated breakfast; and as Marianne pointed out there was only so much to be achieved by way of preparation once they reached the theatre. The "short way" was a linking magic between this house and François', but it could only be operated by the magicians, so she disappeared - literally - down a corridor at the back of the house, and the rest of them piled into a a horseless carriage. The carriage could apparently be spelled to be driver-less as well as Arthur sat next to Feliks and drilled them all in their plan.

Which was all very well, Toris thought, except that it wasn't much of a plan at all.

They would have to hide themselves backstage or in the audience and stop Ivan and General Zima only once they had started acting suspicious. They didn't know when in the play this would happen, but Arthur assured them it would be obvious. At which point, they would - hopefully - have a theatre-full of witnesses to the chief regents' treachery.

Unless they didn't manage to stop the spell in time, which case it would all be too late, Ivan would be the Prince and pretty soon none of them would even remember.

"And then we find the real Prince, somehow," said Feliks.

"If he isn't dead already," said Toris. He was amazed at how calm his voice was.

Arthur nodded. "If that part of the spell hasn't already gone too far."

Natasha, who had said nothing since breakfast, raised her eyes from her lap and said, "Better no prince at all then a Prince Ivan."

And she loved her brother! thought Toris. Didn't she? Could he possibly have been wrong about that? Or—she loved him, but where Toris had misunderstood was thinking this blinded her to his negative qualities...

"From our, uh, brief acquaintance," said Feliks, "I totally agree. And there's the Princess Hedvika..." His voice caught and trailed off.

"Are we going to kill a prince?" Toris asked.

"No," said Arthur. "If it... well, we're going to trying our damnedest to stop them killing him, what else can we do? If we fail," he continued carefully, "the best we can hope is that he's far away. The palace won't be far enough if that's where they have him. If he's anywhere near the spell when it goes off, he really will be gone, erased from memory and existence itself. It's possible, I can't say for sure, that if he was... I don't know, ten miles? More? away, he'd be... left. Still forgotten but still there, a living human being."

Feliks looked green. The cart was lurching something awful, going as fast as the spell would take it.