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blocked by the same invisible stone wall. She snarled and jumped back, then picked up a heavy oak chair and flung it at the windows. The thing bounced back and thudded to the ground, the windows untouched. Ulrika glared at them, fists clenched at her sides.
    ‘Mistress,’ said the maid softly. ‘Mistress, are you well?’
    Ulrika turned. The girl and the butler had edged back to the dining room door, watching her warily.
    ‘I am fine,’ she said. ‘Go to your rooms.’
    They ducked their heads and hurried away, relieved. Ulrika righted the chair, then kicked it savagely, then paced and kicked it again, smashing it into a table.
    The countess had locked her in. Ulrika had made a solemn pledge to her that she would not leave the house, and she had still locked her in! Ulrika snarled. Now she knew what Gabriella truly thought of her. For all her petting and soft words, she did not trust her to keep a vow. She believed her nothing more than a child, without honour or brains or sense of duty. It was a slap in the face – an insult to her integrity.
    Rage filled her again, crimson clouds blurring and warping her vision until the room seemed at the bottom of a stormy red sea. She kicked the chair again, upsetting it. When Gabriella returned there would be a reckoning. Ulrika would not be lulled once again by smooth talk. She would demand her release, and if the countess refused, she would fight her way out, or die trying. She could not allow herself to serve such a duplicitous witch for one second longer. Ursun’s teeth! If she could break the wards that trapped her, she would leave now and never come back. To hell with all this Lahmian intrigue, with its rivalries and subtleties and airless rooms. She wanted out!
    A tiny voice in Ulrika’s head reminded her of her vow to Gabriella, but she roared at it and it retreated into a corner, cowering. When the countess had turned that key, she had removed any obligation Ulrika owed to her. There was no dishonour in breaking a pledge to someone without honour.
    She leapt at the window, claws and fangs bared, and slashed and clawed at it. It rebuffed her as before, and she fell back panting, but her anger was too hot to let it be. She turned, growling under her breath. If there was a way through the wards she would find it, and if there wasn’t, the countess would return to find her tidy little home torn to shreds.
    Ulrika sprinted up the stairs to her room, darted around her canopied bed and crossed to the heavy curtains on the wall that faced the street. She gripped them in her claws and tore them down – and was faced with a blank wall. There was no window behind them. She stared, nonplussed, then ran across the hall to Gabriella’s room and tore down her curtains too. Again there was no window, only smooth plaster.
    Ulrika stepped back, mind churning. She was certain she had seen upper windows on the outside of the house. They must be false, to give the impression of normality, while protecting Lahmian guests from exposure to the sun. Quickly, she tried every room on the floor, tearing down the curtains. None had windows.
    Ulrika kicked the wall in frustration, then stopped, panting. What about a fireplace? Could she climb up a chimney and out? She ran back to Gabriella’s room and ducked her head under the mantelpiece. No such luck, the inside of the chimney was hardly big enough to admit her head, let alone her shoulders.
    With a snarl, she snatched up the poker and slashed at a cherubic marble caryatid that held up one end of the mantel. Its little stone head bounced across the room and stopped below where the window should have been. She laughed and crossed to it, meaning to hurl it at something, then paused, looking again at the wall. There was a shadow on the plaster – a very faint vertical line. She stepped closer. It looked like the impression left on a blotter after one had lifted away the paper – an almost imperceptible tracery of what one had written. She ran