Roland spent what felt like an eternity staring at the note in his dirt-stained grasp, pondering the confluence of events that must have transpired to place it in his hands, at that moment. He could scarcely imagine how it might have happened.

Yet it had.

A plaintive call for assistance from the castle above. A castle which for decades had neither sent nor asked for an emissary. No one he knew below could say for sure whether its cold corridors were traversed by gentlemen or ghosts. Whether the haunting, celestial music sometimes heard at dusk was generated by people or poltergeists.

And most certainly, no one from the town below had ever managed to ascend to the palace in the sky.

Until now. For as plain as he knew the back of his own hand, Roland was certain of one inescapable fact.

The handwriting on the note was that of his best friend Jacque.