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FOR THREE FRUSTRATING DAYS, WHILE VON STRALICK gathered his strength under Aubrey’s care and while Aubrey did his best to concoct a replacement plan, Dr Tremaine’s estate was even more a hive of action than it had already been. Lorries arrived in convoys, backed up to the outbuildings and were loaded up before grinding their way down the mountain again. Aubrey made careful note of these deliveries; he estimated the volumes of the packing crates and made particular count of the coils of wire that were delivered – dozens of them, each the height of a man.

Long ago he’d accepted that his mission – his personal mission to win Caroline – had gone by the board. Matters of the heart were out of his hands, overtaken by matters military and political. Out of my hands? He nearly laughed. As if matters of the heart had ever been in his hands. He had to derive satisfaction from properly undertaking his intelligence gathering task, and he took some grim pleasure when he saw something that indicated the level of success of his sabotage at Baron von Grolman’s factory.

Von Stralick scratched his chin. ’ ‘Definitely. Any magic strong enough to spirit us over the wall will set off the alarms. ’ Aubrey stared at the nearest magic detector. Significantly, it didn’t stare back. It simply sat there smugly, daring him to try something. Apart from an overactive imagination, he thought, perhaps I’m going about this the wrong way. Instead of trying to avoid detection, why couldn’t he simply prevent the machines from alerting the dozy guards? After all, a magical alarm that couldn’t do any actual alarming was, essentially, a box – and a box wasn’t going to stop Aubrey Fitzwilliam from getting over a wall.