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Night had fallen by the time the trio found the place they sought, in the Sixth Circle, but the mansion was ablaze with light that spilled out across the road so that they had to watch from quite a distance as late-arriving carriages rattled up and their bejewelled and silk-clad occupants disembarked. No doubt most of these would take them for passers-by, stopped to gawp– but "Lord" Sador might be around, and others of his sinister crew who knew them by sight.
There were swarms of servants in swan-livery darting in and out, but it was the tall ones who kept the door who held Asta's attention. They were the ones she would have to draw away with her flaming powders– but not yet, not until all the guests were inside.
Nearer than the chatter of voices and the rumble of carriage-wheels, she could hear Harry muttering to himself, as he had been doing for half the journey, "I shouldn’t be doing this. I shouldn’t be doing this..." He did not even seem to realise he was speaking aloud. Asta shook her head sadly. Perhaps it had not been such a good idea to bring him after all.
She herself had a sense of elation. She felt like Lúthien Tinúviel, going forth to rescue Beren from the dungeons of Tol-in-Gaurhoth. The sandstone facade did not look much like the dread Sorcerer's tower as depicted on the backdrops the Players had used for that production, but if Sador were under its roof, it harboured an evildoer equally foul. (Well, almost equally. She did not want to start exaggerating, now.)
Suddenly, thinking of Lúthien's subsequent career, Asta had another of her brilliant inspirations. The original plan had a serious flaw, in that it had no provision for how they would escape notice once inside the mansion. She had vaguely hoped they might pass as guests, but now, watching all these finely-dressed aristocrats sweeping in, she had to concede that all three of them would stick out like sore thumbs. But Lúthien and Beren had faced the same problem, and they had worn–
"Disguises! That's it, as soon as we're inside, we'll grab three of the servants, strip them, bind them, stuff them in a closest, and wear their livery. I'm sure none of these lords and ladies will look twice at us!"
"Asta," Harrenon protested, "do all your schemes involve tying people up?"
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