Interesting.”He left in a hurry. As we followed him out, I said, “Thank you, Serana.”“You’re welcome, Martina. I don’t think I was that he...pful, but ... if it makes it easier for you, I’m all for it.”We followed Viarmo to the Blue Palace. He was nervously pacing at the bottom of the stairs. “I do hope the court likes the verse. I think we’ve done an excellent job recreating it.”“Come on, the court is waiting.”We went up the stairs to where Elisif, Falk, Sybille, and several other members of the. Maybe we could go to Starbucks and get hot cocoa orsomething, talk about Silly Monkey and salvage our afternoon.And lo and behold, who did we see but Heidi Fleegleman, the Winter Queenherself, with an entourage of girls from our school. Not quite the wholecheerleading squad, but the ones who were closest friends. Tara,Heather, Lauren and the ever-popular Ashleigh Bodine. They hadn't seen usand that changed everything in a flash.Chapter Three:I Can't Help MyselfI made Sarah go into the nearest. 'And I won't fight through the rising tide If that's the way it has to be/Sea fog comes, like a river rolls a stone It's rolling me/Sea fog rolling' I drifted along the sea front, looking for the number on the card. It was a blue building, nothing special, and I rang the buzzer with my stomach in my throat. I wanted to bolt and run. I fought to stand there and stay.The man who answered the door looked almost but not totally completely unlike what I expected. In my head I'd held pictures of. "I kinda hoped the girl's school would take care of that but they're soreligious they don't talk about sinful things like that. I've triedhiring local women, three of them in fact! Had to fire them all. Allthe women around here are so religious and you know how I feel aboutthat. Beth hated the church and made me promise when we moved here."He looked at his hands. "She was supposed to take care of all this, thatwas the deal. I don't know who else to trust. If the money wasn't sogood I'd.