The room was enormous, furnished with cushioned chairs and decorated with rich red drapes. The bed was also huge, with a mattress ten times as comfortable as mine back in Eden. I was amazed I had been able to sleep in it, it was so soft. But I had, shutting out the world completely between our early morning arrival and noon. Now I scrambled to clothe myself in borrowed finery as someone knocked on my door, Petro squawking on my shoulder in alarm.

Breathless, I heaved the door aside. Sebastien stood there, arms crossed in mock impatience. He had changed too, and was now dressed in a loose shirt and trews of a much better quality than what he had worn when we first met.

"Bed hair?" he observed, grinning.

I harrumphed, pulling my grimy black locks out of the way. "Bed hair to you too," I replied, though his longish hair looked fine tousled.

"We shall miss midmeal of you dawdle much longer, Cassy."

Glaring at him, I slipped on some sandals before following him down the hallway toward the palace's dining hall. The architecture was incredible, though I only had Eden to compare it to. Columns lined the walls, and each was engraved with a scene from Redport's history, be it distant or recent. One image depicted a younger Dragon astride a horse which looked suspiciously like Gahltha in his prime, and raising the Queen's sceptre in the middle of a square.

The Red Queen herself sat at the head of a long table, Matthew seated to her right next to my father, and my mother on her left. I sat beside my mother opposite my father, Petro fluttering to perch in my mother's hair, and Sebastien took the seat to my left. Several important-looking people sat further down the table.

My mother smiled at me as I sat down, a question in her eyes.

"I am perfectly alright, Mam," I farsought her, and her smile widened.

"We were just talking about you," she said aloud, gesturing at Dragon and scooping Petro from her hair, laying him on the table. "I think you could help Dragon; you could heal her so that she is able to have children."

"I've never..." I began.

My mother took my hand. "Cassy, you have done an incredible amount of things in the last couple of days which you have never done before. There is little harm in giving it a try."

"I can help," Sebastien added. "Coercer abilities can strengthen healing abilities."

My father leaned across the table. "And I am always here if you need."

I smiled, knowing he would lend his dormant Talent where he could. Of course, my mother could have provided the coercer abilities of which Sebastien spoke, but from her face she liked the idea of the gypsy lending a hand. With a sigh, I admitted, "I suppose I could try. Your Majesty," I added, with a quick glance at Dragon.

The Red Queen beamed in a most unqueenly fashion.

"You can try after midmeal," my mother decided.

It was with an impossible amount of nerves that I entered the Red Queen's chambers a short time later. Sebastien walked beside me and I almost felt like taking his arm to steady myself, but of course I did not. Dragon sat on her bed in a gorgeous but comfortable dress, and Matthew stood beside her, his face drawn. Telling myself to breathe properly, I approached the bed and smiled shakily at Matthew before taking Dragon's hand and entering her mind.

Navigating her mind was no easy task. Her natural mental shields wove a chaotic web around her mind, but after a few tries, my probe broke through, once she had recognised it as friendly. I felt Sebastien take my other hand as he added his strength to mine. After many long minutes, I pulled away, hoping I had done what was necessary.

Dragon looked as exhausted as I felt, but she smiled at me wearily. Sebastien squeezed my hand before releasing it, and I nodded, not knowing what else to do. Matthew thanked us heartily, before we were dismissed from the bedchamber.

The silence between the gypsy and I was more companionable as we left. It felt as if we had achieved something together, had worked as a team. Startled, I realised that I had come to respect him – at least more so than I did when the glide crashed – and that this could result in a sense of trust. Was I ready to trust him?

Until a few days ago, my life had consisted of three people and hundreds of beasts. Sebastien was the first new person I had met, and I was still coming to terms with what that meant, and how we were supposed to interact. It seemed to be going well so far, however.

A bundle of feathers burst from a nearby doorway, and Petro pummelled into me. Laughing, I caught his leg and cuddled him to me.

"Where has Innlechild been? Petro has been looking," he sent.

I smiled. "Do not fear, Petro. I was with the Red Queen."

"And the gypsy funaga," Petro added with a baleful look at Sebastien.

We came to a luxurious lounge room, where my parents sat, deep in conversation with a woman I did not recognise. My mother leaned back to smile at me.

"Why don't you two go exploring around Redport?" she suggested.

Petro squawked, insulted.

"Sorry, you three."

"Good idea," Sebastien agreed.

I shrugged. "May as well see it all while we are here."

We made our way toward the front door of the palace, nodding to the guards as we left. Petro was eager to spread his wings and fly properly for the first time since our arrival.

"Palace barud is stuffy," he complained. Soon the little owl was out of sight, but I knew he would come back to me. He always had some way of finding me.

Sebastien led the way, having been to Redport before, and showed me what he considered the most interesting aspects of the desert city. We went back to the Infinity of Dragonstraat to gaze up into the painted beauty of Dragon's face, then he led me toward a dishevelled looking ruin.

"Why are we coming here?" I asked.

"This," the gypsy replied, "was once Slavetown. Matthew lived here at one time, along with many others from Obernewtyn and the Land. That was when the Gadfian slavers ruled Redport."

I knelt by a fallen doll, discarded many years ago by a child born into slavery. Such a fate must have been terrible for a child to endure. "Why would the Gadfians do that? People selling people… I can't even imagine people selling animals."

Sebastien smiled and knelt beside me, picking up the doll and wiping some of the dirt away from its ragged face. "They obviously have different moral standards. We have grown up in a time and place where everyone is equal. Gadfian society is structured very differently."

A noise distracted me from the doll, and I turned around to see five large men approaching, brandishing knives and large sacks. "Sebastien…"

He was up in moments, a knife appearing in his hand. But we were terribly outnumbered. Concentration creased his face as he endeavoured to use coercion on one of the men, but I gasped as I realised they wore metal bands around their arms. My mother had told me of demon bands, and I had found the idea detestable and unfathomable. Yet here they were, rendering us defenceless.

A sack was thrown over my head and rough hands seized me. I shrieked, kicking and punching at random, though I could not see my attackers. Sebastien cried out and I heard the sounds of a scuffle, resulting in a hiss of pain from the gypsy. I hoped he had not been badly injured. Petro joined the fray, hissing and diving at the men, but his efforts were in vain.

"Petro, fly back to the palace. Tell my parents what has happened. You can help us more if you escape," I sent urgently.

Reluctantly, he launched himself into the air and flew away. I had stopped struggling, but tried to slow my heavy breathing and pounding heart. Then someone struck me over the head and I knew nothing.

Next I knew, I was in a cage. Sebastien lay beside me, blood soaking the sleeve of his shirt. On impulse, I took his arm and prepared to heal the wound. Then I noticed the biting metal collar around my neck and sank back. I wore a cursed demon band. My abilities were useless.

The gypsy stirred and I called his name, anxious that he would recover. His eyelids fluttered a few times before opening.

"Cassy?"

I smiled grimly. "Yes, Sebastien." He, too, wore a demon band around his neck.

Looking around, I tried to figure out where we were. There were no houses in sight, so I assumed this wasn't Redport. We must have been taken back toward the desert. The cage was attached to a large hut, and both sat atop a sand dune. Gazing out, I could see kilometres of sand. How I hated sand.

The cage was suddenly thrown open by a burly man who sneered at us. "Who wants to go first?" he asked mockingly, in an accent I didn't recognise.

I shrank back, knowing that if he required us to do something I was the most fit to do so.

He laughed cruelly. "Just fooling you; you are both going on this little excursion."

Another man approached, and they seized Sebastien and me, dragging us from the cage. We were heaved upright and our hands bound in front of us, before strips of cloth were tied over our eyes. Blinded, we stumbled as our captors pushed us into a vehicle of some sort; probably a cart or a carriage.

Fear and reluctant acceptance were all I felt as the vehicle pulled off, and on instinct I reached toward where I supposed Sebastien sat. The gypsy's hands were warm as they enveloped mine, though both our pairs of hands were soon slick with the blood which poured from the wound to his arm. I decided I didn't care.

After half an hour or so of travel, the vehicle came to a halt and we were bundled roughly to the ground. Sand poured into my sandals, so we were still in the desert. Then the hands unbound the cloth from our eyes and the rope from our wrists, before we were left alone in the sand. The vehicle turned and trundled away.

"Why…?" I began, to be cut off by a sound of alarm from Sebastien.

"Cassy, your feet!"

I glanced down and realised my feet had sunk into the sand, and my legs were only visible from the knee up. Shocked, I tried to pull one foot out, but the other sank deeper.

"Sebastien," I gasped as the gypsy began to sink too. Soon we were both waist deep.

"What do we do?" I cried.

He looked determined. "I don't want to die not knowing why we're here. Maybe we can… grab onto something." He broke off, looking into the distance behind me. "They're sitting there watching us, the sick bastards. Waiting for us to die."

"Sebastien, over there!"

The gypsy's gaze followed my pointing finger to where a rock ledge jutted out over the sand just twenty metres away.

"Can we move sideways? If we can climb that ledge, we'll be safe," I suggested.

Sebastien nodded and pushed against the sand in the direction of the rocks, but to no avail. He sank lower, covered from toe to chest in sand. Slowly, I realised I was still seeping downward too. I was shorter than him, so where he was chest-deep, I was neck-deep.

The gypsy laughed.

I stared at him in surprise. "What is so funny?"

"This is it. This is how deep it goes. My feet are on hard rock."

Pressing down with my toes, I realised he was right. This was the extent of the quick sand. We were not going to drown in it. But how on earth were we going to get out?

"They knew it all along," Sebastien continued. "They have been watching us, not waiting for our deaths, but for the moment we realised the limit of our danger. They must think it incredibly funny."

"Hmmph," I agreed.

Three men appeared, having observed our plight from a hill somewhere behind me, and took an arm of ours each. They laughed as we dusted ourselves off, reminding each other of the most hilarious parts of the episode. My borrowed shirt and skirt which had once been magnificently embroidered red now looked brown, and the fabric was worn. The men offered no explanation for leaving us in the quicksand, but bound our hands again and led us back to the waiting cart.

We were transported back to the hut and locked in our cage, more questions on our lips than could be asked of people who possessed limited knowledge of Uropan. They would have to wait.