we’re lucky? Bene, are you sure this is a good idea?”
“Indeed, Mr B., are you sure?” said a voice from behind them.
They turned to see Mr Fox, dressed from head to toe in winter gear, sitting on a bench at the back of the room. Next to him was the bulbous-eyed Mr Spider, in his regular grey suit.
“Sneaking off in the dead of night without telling anyone? Well, it doesn’t exactly glow with team spirit, does it?”
“Where did you come from?!” spat Benissimo.
“Actually, we were just behind the door when you walked in. I thought it might be a good idea if I tagged along.”
“Mr Fox, you and I have done some great things in our short time together and I am very grateful to your organisation, but I think it might be better if you remained in the Nest.”
The wording was polite enough, the coiled whip unfurling in Benissimo’s hand far less so.
“Mr Spider, go and get some sleep,” said Mr Fox.
“Sir?” said the thin-limbed agent. “I’m fine, thank you, sir.”
Mr Fox’s eyes rolled very slightly but he remained completely calm. “You are many things, Mr Spider, none of which is ‘fine’.”
Mr Spider grinned thinly, before excusing himself.
“Mr Spider has taken it upon himself to follow me of late and I’m not sure that I enjoy it very much. Now trust me when I say this, Mr B – I really don’t want to come with you.”
Ned watched Benissimo’s whip closely. It was wavering to and fro and he was quite sure that it was almost ready to snap.
“You are a confoundingly difficult man to work with,” Mr Fox went on. “Hot-headed, obtuse and with no regard for protocol. I hope you’ll agree that I have tried to be accommodating. But here’s the thing: for this partnership to work, for this entire operation to work, I need some ‘certainties’. You can’t, it seems, be killed, and for that I am – ‘we’ are – relieved. You can, however, be captured and being that you’re the only one who knows ‘the plan’, well, if you’re captured then we lose. I am not going to demand you tell me everything, but I’m afraid I must insist on making sure you return.”
Mr Fox said all this with a calm, almost apologetic voice. He also seemed strangely certain that Benissimo would agree. The Ringmaster, however, got that stubborn look. His cheeks became flushed and his whip now rose threateningly between them.
“Mr Fox, I’m not sure that I like it when people ‘insist’.”
Mr Fox smiled, but remained seated and spoke into his wrist.
“Mr Badger, are you ready to wake Mum and Dad?”
“On your order, sir,” crackled back his wrist.
“You wouldn’t dare!” gasped Benissimo.
“Actually, it would be quite in character,” smiled Mr Fox.
Ned flinched. If his parents found out before they left there would be trouble – bags of the stuff. “Err, Bene, maybe we should hear him out?”
“Nonsense, pup, I won’t be blackmailed and I won’t delay our mission.”
“And besides –” Mr Fox pulled a sliver of mirrored glass from his sleeve – “you won’t get very far without this.”
It was a mirror key and no doubt the very one that they needed from the shelves to their left. Benissimo appeared to be in something of a checkmate, and all three of them knew it.
An angry twitch of a moustache later, and a powerless Ned made ready to step through the glass. He may well have lost his powers, but he had a mouse, a slovenly shadow, a Ringmaster and now a fox to help him on his way.
Ned pushed his face through the mirror and, a cool but clean tug later, found himself several thousand miles away, in a frozen and lightless wood.
“Soft mint, anyone?”
Despite where they were, the enigma that was Mr Fox seemed completely at ease.
“They’re not standard issue, but I do allow myself small luxuries from time to time.”
Benissimo’s moustache twitched. “Mr Fox, considering our circumstances, I would appreciate you enjoying the ‘small luxury’ of keeping ruddy quiet.”
Mr Fox stopped mid-chew. “I don’t take orders from you, Mr B. I’d remember that if I were you.”
“Actually, my unwelcome accomplice, right now I’m trying to forget you exist.”
Mr Fox put away his mints and squared up to Benissimo. In his own clipped way he looked rather intimidating and was not about to give an inch to the Ringmaster.
“Well, like it or not, here I am.”
“I think I’ve made it quite clear that I don’t—”
Ned’s eyes rolled. Clearly Benissimo and Mr Fox’s alliance was being tested.
“Will you two belt up! I don’t think any of us wants to be here, but being that we are and it’s freezing, can we just get on with it?!”
Both men suddenly looked quite sheepish.
“Zeus’s crown, you’re right, Ned. I’m sorry and so is Mr Fox.”
Mr Fox nodded reluctantly.
“Now, pup, would you be so kind as to summon your familiar?”
“Gorrn, sure, but what for?”
“Because between us and the folk I’m trying to get us to is the most dangerous stretch of forest anywhere on earth. Needless to say, I expect Gorrn will be about the only thing to keep us from being brutally savaged.”
The worst part of Benissimo’s explanation was that he wasn’t smiling and Ned still didn’t know what they were doing there.
“I’d feel a lot better about all this if I knew who we were trying to meet.”
Benissimo frowned. “If we’re separated
