"So, never mind being bloody princesses, you're telling me those murdered women might be from different universes? Peregrine, you actually expect me to believe that?"

"No, Mr Fields. I expect you to die."

"What!"

"Ha, jokes. Not a Bond fan, huh? Look Fields, I don't expect anything. But what I advise you to do is keep an open mind. And trust me when I tell you that sometimes, just occasionally—often when you least expect it—things are not as they seem. Oh, most of the time, they are. Most of the time, the boring, mundane, everyday, by-the-book, laws-of-thermodynamics, non-fairy-tale-princess reasons turn out to be the actual reasons. But sometimes, just often enough to keep things interesting—and to keep us employed—they're not. Trust me, I should know."

An open mind was something Fields prided himself on—but there were limits. "And I suppose you think this is one of those times?"

Peregrine shrugged. "Too early to tell. But there's enough here for us to dig a little deeper."

Shaking his head, Fields wandered over to the boxy structure Radovic had been inspecting. It looked big enough to hold a person, or maybe two, provided they didn't have any issues with intimacy. As he gave it a half-hearted prod, he noticed fixtures and marks on the wall and floor alongside the structure, suggesting it had recently been moved. Or possibly, he realised, that there had been a second box. "How did you even hear about this place? About Featherstone?"

"Fields, the Novus Institute deals with research at the cutting-edge of science—basically, they work on the border between the known and the unknown. That's Section F territory. And I like to keep an eye on my territory. Our territory, now."

"What, so you were doing a little light reading on quantum physics, and stumbled across somebody researching princess portals?"

Peregrine chuckled, and shaped to give her partner another friendly punch, before realising he was out of range. "Not exactly. I just put the word out, asking my contacts to watch for anything princess related. I thought they might turn up something like a cult with a fairy-tale fixation, or a hardcore cosplayer group with reality issues, or a sex-ring with a Snow-White fetish—you know, routine stuff like that."

At the sight of her raised fist, Fields edged a little further away. "Routine?"

"Yep—boring, everyday crap. Not the kind of stuff that makes it into Section F. Instead, I got a tip from my man on the inside here—an ex-con working as a cleaner. Started finding fairy-tale paraphernalia around Featherstone's lab"—she pointed towards Grimms' Fairy Tales—"and came in late one night to find him watching Snow White on his laptop."

Fields absorbed this. "Well, that's hardly compelling, is it? I mean, the book might just be for his kids, and maybe he was checking out movies for them, too. Or maybe he's just a closet Disney tragic. They're out there."

"Maybe, Fields. Maybe. Except that Featherstone doesn't have any kids—never been married. No nephews or nieces, either 'cause he's an only child. Not so much as an annoying kid next door."

Despite himself, Fields felt the first stirrings of interest. Faint stirrings. "Let me guess—he's also a bit of a loner? Mainly keeps to himself?"

"Ha! You got it."

As he was inclined to do when thinking deeply, Fields stroked his chin. "Okay, so I'll grant you this Featherstone character comes across as a bit suspicious. A bit. But it's still awfully thin. No social life and questionable taste in movies hardly make him Robinson Crusoe. There's not much to go on."

"Welcome to Section F, partner. 'Not much to go on' could be our motto. But let's have a look at what we have got. On the one hand, there's a mega-nerd who thinks he can access other worlds and is a fan of the Brothers Grimm. On the other, there's a bunch of dead princesses. See what we've got there?"

"A coincidence?" replied Fields. "A waste of our time? A deeply troubling snapshot of the human condition?"

Unnoticed, Peregrine had subtly moved back within striking distance, which she now demonstrated by giving Fields' midriff a playful two-fisted pummelling. "Ha! What an old cynic," she chided. "Nope, what we've got is a couple of intriguing, solid-gold, bona-fide leads, Section F style."

"Leads?" wheezed Fields, hastily backing away.

"You think so, too? Good to see we're on the same page. Okay, you track down Featherstone—nobody here has seen him for at least a fortnight. I'll go check out the princess stiffs and try to rustle up a clue or two."

"What? But I—"

"You know, Fields, I've got a really good feeling about our little partnership. I reckon this could be the start of something big."

Fields stopped backing up—the wall had gotten in his way. "Yay."

Mind reeling (and arm bruised, ribs achy, back tingling and stomach tender), Fields was pulling into the driveway of Featherstone's residential address before it dawned on him he was effectively there on Peregrine's say-so. Without the slightest hesitation or consultation, she had sent him on his way, as if he was some wet-behind-the-ears, greenhorn cadet, instead of the seasoned, capable agent he knew himself to be; an agent with three years of hard-won, street-savvy experience under his belt.

That was going to stop. Although no doubt her junior in experience, Fields was every bit Peregrine's equal in rank, and—he was quite confident—her superior in most of the skills that really mattered when it came to being an agent. An agent in a real department, anyway.

He wasn't usually such a pushover. It was just that Peregrine had been so, well...Peregrine. From the moment he'd walked into that dingy lab, he'd been thrown off-balance; bombarded with an avalanche of witticisms, weirdness, innuendo and borderline grievous bodily harm. Fields had never met another agent quite like her.

Fiendishly tough to enter, fiercely competitive and ferociously difficult, the Agency academy tended to have a somewhat...homogenising effect on its graduates. Super-fit, straight-talking, sharp-shooting, supremely skilled recruits was what the Agency wanted, and for the most part, that was precisely what the academy supplied. If social skills, interpersonal relationships and a sense-of-humour happened to be sacrificed along the way, well then, so be it. No omelettes without cracking eggs, and so on.

Only in Peregrine's case, it seemed as though they hadn't been. There were many words she conjured up in Fields' mind, not all of them suitable for polite company, but homogenised certainly wasn't one of them.

No, he thought to himself, as walked across the patio, it was no wonder he'd been a little taken aback. Used to dealing with no-nonsense, cookie-cutter versions of himself, Peregrine had come as something of a shock to his system, what with her sushi and her crazy theories and her ridiculous Section F nonsense.

Down in that basement, surrounded by mysterious equipment, confronted with superpositions and reincarnated cats, caught up in Peregrine's enthusiasm, bruised and battered both mentally and physically, he had actually begun to believe that maybe, just maybe, there was something to her theories.

Now, standing at the front door of an ordinary house, on a well-manicured suburban street, in the bright sunlight of a fine day, he could see it all for the absolute...hooey it was. Hooey he'd be well served to stay away from if he wanted to resuscitate his career.

Raising his fist to knock on the door, he resolved to head straight to HQ as soon as he was done with this wild goose-chase. He'd ask for a re-assignment. He'd call in favours. He'd plead. Hell, he'd beg if he had to. He'd do whatever it took, because he had no doubt whatsoever that visiting Featherstone, not to mention the whole nonsensical investigation, was a complete and utter waste of time.

Which was why, when the unlatched door swung open at his touch, he was somewhat surprised by the dead prince lying in the entryway.