Jenna, too, was pleased to have her brothers back, but she was less happy about Sarah. Jenna thought of the Palace as her territory now and she did not like the way Sarah had taken charge as soon as she had returned. The way Jenna saw it, Sarah had moved out and was now back as her guest. Sarah, however, did not see it that way.

It was the little things that annoyed Jenna.

For instance, Jo-Jo Heap had developed a fascination with Gothyk Grotto, the shop at the end of Little Creep Cut, and soon some members of the staff became regular visitors to the Palace. Sarah Heap did not object to two of them: Matt and Marcus Marwick, Wolf Boy’s brothers, were “nice young men,” she said. What she did object to was “that sulky young witch, Marissa.”

“But Mum,” Jo-Jo protested, “Marissa’s left both Covens.”

“Both?” Sarah was horrified. “You mean she’s a Port Coven witch as well?”

“No, Mum. I told you. She not with either of them anymore,” Jo-Jo insisted.

“Once a witch, always a witch,” Sarah declared. “And no witch is going to set foot in my house.”

Jenna pointed out that the Palace was her house now and she would decide who was welcome in the Palace, not Sarah. Ever since Marissa had helped her escape from the Port Witch Coven, Jenna had come to like her. To prove a point she had invited Marissa over that very evening. Jo-Jo was delighted. Sarah was not.

Another day Jenna found Sarah in one of the disused kitchens, loading Lucy up with a pile of saucepans. “We don’t need all this stuff,” Sarah told Jenna when she had come to see what all the noise was. Jenna felt annoyed. Even though she was perfectly happy for Lucy and Simon to have things from the Palace, she did think Sarah should have asked her first.

While Sarah managed to irritate Jenna in a hundred little ways, Milo Banda was having the same effect on Sarah. “He’s hovering round the Palace like a bad smell,” Sarah complained to Silas one afternoon, after bumping into Milo in the shadows of the Long Walk for the fifth time that day, carrying something covered with a cloth. “And he’s always got some kind of junk with him. And when I ask him what it is he just smiles and goes shhh. What’s that about, Silas?”

“Don’t ask me,” said Silas. “The man’s a total fruitcake.”

Sarah sighed. “I know I shouldn’t complain. He is Jenna’s father—oh, Silas, don’t look so crotchety—and this is his home. But usually he’s here one day and gone the next.”

“The sooner he’s gone the better, if you ask me,” said Silas. “He unsettles Jenna.”

Silas was right; Milo’s presence did unsettle Jenna. Some mornings later, just as Septimus was getting his Flyte Charm returned to him, Jenna was leaning over the balustrade of the gallery that ran along the top of the Palace entrance hall. She was gazing at the patterns cast by the snow-bright sunlight glancing in through the windows when she saw Milo stride across the hall, his shiny black leather boots click-clicking on the stone floor, his red-and-gold cloak billowing out behind him as he rushed out of the Palace on yet more “business.”

Suddenly Jenna had the oddest sensation. She felt as if she had been transported to the life she would have had if her mother, Queen Cerys, had not been gunned down by an assassin’s bullet. It was so real that it made Jenna feel quite strange.

In the what-might-have-been world, Jenna (except she wasn’t called Jenna. She had a longer, more ancient name) was the oldest daughter—the Crown Princess. She had two younger sisters and a brother, all of whom had dark hair, violet eyes and found Magyk weird, just like her. Her two sisters looked a lot like her and her little brother looked like a young Marcellus. The what-might-have-been Palace was a busy place, the center of Castle life with coming and goings, and somewhere close by—in the Throne Room, probably—she knew that her mother was getting on with the business of the day. In fact, her mother was waiting for her to go to her, to spend the morning helping with Castle business and learning how to be a Queen. All was as it should be and at that moment it seemed to Jenna that her whole life up until now was no more than a long and complicated dream out of which she had just stepped.

Jenna was so caught up by the sensation of what-might-have-been that when Milo—sensing she was there—looked up at her and smiled, she blew him a kiss. She saw Milo stop dead as though someone had hit him; then she saw his face break into a smile of happy amazement. Milo blew her a kiss in return, and was out of the door and gone.

“Binkie-binkie-boo . . . binkie-binkie-boo . . .”