Embarrassed, Marcia stopped in midyawn. “Oh! Morning, Milo.”
“Good morning, Madam Marcia.” A familiar voice came from behind Milo.
“Hildegarde!” said Marcia.
Milo turned and clasped Hildegarde’s hands in both of his. “Thank you so much, Hildegarde,” he said. “It’s been a long night. You have been wonderful.”
Hildegarde blushed. “It was my pleasure,” she said as she squeezed out of the door past Marcia.
Marcia watched Hildegarde hurry off down the Palace drive. “Well!” she said.
It was a distinctly frosty Marcia whom Milo escorted through the Palace entrance hall. At the entrance to the Long Walk, Milo stopped. “Close your eyes,” he said.
“Milo, I do not have time to play silly games,” Marcia snapped.
“Please,” Milo said. He gave Marcia the slightly lopsided smile that she had liked so much, so very long ago.
Marcia sighed. “Oh, all right.”
Milo took Marcia’s hand and led her into the Long Walk—she knew where she was by the chill of the old stone passageway. “You can open your eyes now,” said Milo with a smile in his voice.
Marcia was lost for words. After some moments she managed, “It’s beautiful!”
Stretching as far as Marcia could see down the Long Walk, the ancient Palace gold candleholders were back in their places. Tall and elegant, in each burned a fat beeswax candle, filling the normally musty Walk with the subtle scent of honey. The light from the candles illuminated treasures that Marcia dimly remembered from before the Bad Old Days: Ancient portraits of the Queens, beautiful painted statues settled back into their niches, polished wooden chests, little gilded tables and chairs, and, covering the old threadbare carpet, intricately patterned rugs in soft blues and reds.
Milo began to speak. “When I first came back to the Palace and saw what DomDaniel’s thugs had taken, I swore that by the time my Jenna was Queen I would have returned everything to its rightful place. But it was not until I met Hildegarde that I was able to do this.”
Marcia said nothing. But she was beginning to understand.
Hildegarde had once been part of the Sales Force who had, under instructions from DomDaniel, sold off all the Palace treasures—mainly to fund DomDaniel’s lavish banquets. Hildegarde had joined the Wizard Tower as part of Marcia’s Second-Chance Scheme and had always wanted to make amends for her part in ransacking the Palace. And so when Milo asked her to help him track down as many of the old treasures as possible, Hildegarde had jumped at the chance. She had kept a note of every sale and with her help, Milo was able to buy back most of the long-lost treasures. He had spent the last weeks touring the Farmlands with a cart, picking up the more distant finds and hiding them in the locked rooms at the end of the Long Walk. On Coronation Eve, Milo and Hildegarde worked through the night, and by the morning the Long Walk was transformed into the wonderful place that Marcia now saw.
“So why didn’t you tell me?” asked Marcia.
“Well, at first I thought you would object to me using the valuable time of a Wizard for non-Magykal purposes. But after those unfortunate misunderstandings, I did try to tell you. But you wouldn’t listen. So I wrote you a letter explaining.”
“Oh,” said Marcia a little sheepishly.
“Which I could tell you hadn’t read,” said Milo. He smiled. “I reckoned you were still in such a temper that you probably threw it in the fire or something. So I figured the only way was to show you.”
“It’s wonderful,” said Marcia. “A new start for the Palace. Has Jenna seen it?”
“No,” said Milo. “I wanted it to be a surprise for her Coronation Day. I am about to show her. But I wanted to show you first.”
It was a most Magykal day. The sun shone—as Jenna had known it would—and the entire Castle turned out to see her.
In the morning, accompanied by Sir Hereward, Milo showed Jenna the Long Walk. Buzzing with excitement, Jenna wandered through the Palace gardens, glad of some time to be alone and think about what her future might hold. The gardens were decorated with the multitude of Coronation offerings that had caused Sarah Heap so much trouble. Metallic red and gold Coronation Bunting hung from the trees and glittered in the sunlight, the lawns were strewn with the huge assortment of Coronation Rugs, and Coronation Cushions were scattered underneath the brightly colored Coronation Sunshades. Jenna thought they looked wonderful. As she wandered down toward the river, Jenna came to a sudden halt. Running the length of the lawn was the longest table (the Coronation Table) covered with the longest, whitest cloth (the Coronation Cloth) that she had ever seen. The table gave her a strange feeling when she saw it. At first she was not sure why—and then she remembered. It was a much, much bigger version of the table that Sarah had once laid ready for breakfast on her tenth birthday—the day when her life had changed and she had discovered that one day she would be the Castle Queen.