“Silas, do you and Sarah know who, er…Jenna…is?” asked Marcia.
“Yes. We do. Jenna is our daughter, that’s who she is,” said Silas stubbornly.
“But you guessed, didn’t you?” said Marcia, directing her gaze at Sarah.
“Yes,” said Sarah quietly.
“So you will understand when I say that she is not safe here anymore. I need to take her. Now,” Marcia said urgently.
“No!” yelled Jenna. “No!” She scrambled back onto Sarah’s lap. Sarah held her tightly.
Silas was angry. “Just because you’re the ExtraOrdinary Wizard, Marcia, you think you can just walk in here and mess up our lives like it doesn’t matter. You most certainly are not taking Jenna away. She is ours. Our only daughter. She is perfectly safe here, and she stays with us.”
“Silas,” sighed Marcia, “she is not safe with you. Not anymore. She has been discovered. You have a spy living right next door to you. Linda Lane.”
“Linda!” gasped Sarah. “A spy? I don’t believe it.”
“You mean that awful old gasbag who is always around here prattling on about pills and potions and drawing endless pictures of the kids?” asked Silas.
“Silas!” remonstrated Sarah. “Don’t be so rude.”
“I’ll be more than rude to her if she is a spy,” declared Silas.
“There’s no ‘if’ about it, Silas,” said Marcia. “Linda Lane most definitely is a spy. And I’m sure the pictures she has been drawing are proving very useful to the Supreme Custodian.”
Silas groaned. Marcia pressed home her advantage.
“Look, Silas, I only want the best for Jenna. You have to trust me.”
Silas snorted. “Why on earth should we trust you, Marcia?”
“Because I have trusted you with the Princess, Silas,” said Marcia. “Now you must trust me. What happened ten years ago must not happen again.”
“You forget, Marcia,” said Silas scathingly, “that we don’t know what happened ten years ago. No one ever bothered to tell us.”
Marcia sighed. “How could I tell you, Silas? It was best for the Princess’s, I mean Jenna’s, sake that you did not know.”
At the mention of Princess yet again, Jenna looked up at Sarah.
“Madam Marcia called me that before,” she whispered. “Is that really me?”
“Yes, poppet,” Sarah whispered back, then she looked Marcia in the eye and said, “I think we all need to know what happened ten years ago, Madam Marcia.”
Marcia looked at her timepiece. This had to be quick. She took a deep breath and started.
“Ten years ago,” she said, “I had just passed my final exams and I’d gone over to see Alther to thank him. Well, soon after I arrived a messenger rushed in to tell him that the Queen had given birth to a baby girl. We were so pleased—it meant that the heir to the Castle had at last arrived.
“The messenger summoned Alther to the Palace to conduct the Welcome Ceremony for the baby Princess. I went with him to help him carry all the heavy books, potions and charms that he needed. And to remind him in what order to do things as dear old Alther was becoming a little forgetful at times.
“When we arrived at the Palace we were taken to the Throne Room to see the Queen, who looked so happy—so wonderfully happy. She was sitting on the throne holding her newborn daughter, and she greeted us with the words, ‘Isn’t she beautiful?’ And those were the last words that our Queen spoke.”
“No,” muttered Sarah quietly.
“At that very moment a man in a strange black and red uniform burst into the room. Of course I know now that he was wearing the uniform of an Assassin, but at the time I knew nothing of the kind. I thought he was some kind of messenger, but I could see from the Queen’s face that she was not expecting him. Then I saw that he was carrying a long silver pistol, and I felt very afraid. I glanced at Alther, but he was fussing with his books and hadn’t noticed. Then…it was all so unreal somehow…I just watched the soldier very slowly and deliberately raise the pistol, take aim and fire it straight at the Queen. Everything was so horribly silent as the silver bullet passed straight through the Queen’s heart and embedded itself in the wall behind her. The baby Princess screamed and tumbled from her dead mother’s arms. I leaped forward and caught her.”
Jenna was pale, trying to understand what she was hearing. “Was that me?” she asked Sarah in a low voice. “Was I the baby Princess?”
Sarah nodded slowly.