Prologue
Surrey, England
Just as a hint of lavender stained the pristine blue of the spring sky the soldiers reconvened on the village green, their faces glistening with sweat and their feet sore from hours of walking.
The villagers threw them curious looks but averted their gazes before eye contact could be made, afraid that they would be accused of being complicit.
The village was abuzz with talk, but everyone spoke in whispers, their heads bent together as they conveyed the news to one another, shaking their heads and speculating as to what might have happened.
Captain Humphries looked from one tired face to another and felt a twinge of pity for his men.
They’d been on their feet for hours, searching the countryside, turning the manor house upside down, going house to house in the village and intimidating the inhabitants in the vain hope of finding some trace of the missing man, but they turned up nothing.
“It was magic, it was,” a young soldier named Dawson whispered to the man next to him, but, to his misfortune, the captain overheard.
“There’s no such thing as magic, Dawson,” Captain Humphries barked, although deep down he wasn’t so sure.
His father, who was a learned man, always told him that there was a reasonable explanation for most things, but as far as he could see, there was no reasonable explanation for what had happened that day.
“There is, sir,” Dawson persisted. “I saw a hare turn into a crow once. It flew straight into the air, wings soaring, and circled over my head thrice. I thought I was done for,” the young man confided with a shiver of fear.
“You’re an ignorant fool, Dawson, as is the lot of you.
This wasn’t magic; this was a well-planned escape, an affront to His Majesty, and another nail in that traitor’s coffin.
Find him!!!!” Humphries roared and watched as his men shuffled off toward their horses.
They’d been hoping for a cup of ale and a meal, but instead they’d have to make a pretense of searching for the man when they all knew that he wouldn’t be found.
Humphries walked to the public house, tied up his horse, and took a seat in a shadowy corner, gesturing to the barkeep for a tankard of ale.
He was a man who needed to understand the way things worked in order to make sense of the world around him, but what he witnessed that morning defied all reason.
The man was there one minute—gone the next.
He simply vanished. There was nowhere he could have hidden, no other door he could have slipped through.
How was that possible, unless there really was such a thing as magic?
Captain Humphries took a long pull of the cool ale and rubbed the bridge of his nose, his eyes watering with fatigue.
What was he to tell his superiors? How was he to explain that four soldiers of His Majesty’s guard allowed one unarmed man to slip through their fingers?
Someone would have to take the blame, and that someone was him.
For a brief second, Humphries wished he could disappear as well, for that was much more preferable to what he’d have to face once he arrived back in London.