Wormwood Gate by Katherine Farmar

chair around and strolled over to a drinks cabinet in a corner of the room, Julie risked sending him a questioning glance.
    The guard nodded – very slightly, but enough that she was sure she hadn’t misunderstood.
    â€˜What an incompetent attempt!’ the queen said, laughing a little as she poured herself a brightly coloured drink. ‘What must the Lord of Shadows be … thinking …’ Her voice trailed off and she pivoted smoothly on her heels, still holding the glass and the bottle, one in each hand. She stared at Julie with a blank expression for a moment that stretched out like chewing gum. Julie did her best to look gormless and uninformed. The queen tilted her head to one side, narrowed her eye, then shook her head with a chuckle and returned to her drink. ‘No, not you. If he has another plan – and if I know the Lord of Shadows at all, he has more than one – you are not part of it. Not wise enough. Not clever enough. Not strong enough.’
    Julie wanted to protest, but there was too much at stake. ‘Now that I’ve told you what I know,’ she said in as humble a tone as she could manage, ‘what will you do?’
    The queen carried her drink to the chair and arranged herself in it so that one of her legs was hanging over one arm; to a casual glance the pose would look artless and lazy, but Julie could see that the queen could leap up from it in an eye-blink and go on the attack.
    â€˜What shall I do?’ the queen murmured, as if to herself. ‘What shall I do with a wayward spy, a failed assassin, an incompetent servant of my enemy? Why, whatever shall I do? So many uses I could put you to.’ She giggled – a light, sweet sound that made Julie shiver, coming out of that cruel mouth. ‘So many ways I could punish you.’
    When Julie was in primary school, her class had done a project on earthworms. Most of the class had been very dutiful in keeping and caring for their designated earthworms, but there had been a few boys and one or two girls who had taken pleasure in pricking them with pins, cutting them in two, tossing them about, leaving them exposed to air so that they dried out and died. It was the squirming they liked most. The more the worms moved, the more they looked like they were in pain, the more these children liked it.
    I won’t be your worm , Julie thought as the queen’s eye watched her and the edges of her mouth slipped downwards. I gave you what you wanted, but I won’t be your worm!
    The queen abruptly shifted her body in the chair so that she was sitting upright and tossed back her drink in one swallow. ‘Very well,’ she said, slamming the glass down on the table next to the chair. ‘How loyal are you to the Lord of Shadows?’
    â€˜I’m not really loyal to him at all,’ said Julie, quite pleased to be able to tell the truth.
    â€˜And your companion?’
    â€˜It’s the same for her. We’re … you could say we sort of fell into this. We don’t really care what happens to the Lord of Shadows or his plans.’
    â€˜Excellent,’ said the queen, steepling her fingers, and the word and the gesture together reminded Julie so much of Mr Burns from The Simpsons that she had to bite the insides of her cheeks to keep from laughing. ‘In that case,’ the queen went on, ‘you won’t object to working against him. Will you?’ Julie shook her head. ‘Marvellous. Then I give you the following task: find Molly Red. Find out her plan. Find out whether she is still working for the Lord of Shadows; if she’s not, find out who she is working for. Find these things out, and tell what you have learned to me or one of my loyal servants – and if you’re not sure if the servant is loyal, assume he is not. Do you understand?’
    Julie nodded. ‘And … what if I can’t? Molly Red’s pretty cunning. I might not be able to find