The gardens were thankfully not very occupied since most people were on the streets, so it didn’t take us long at all to get to the distant corner that touched on the high brick wall marking the boundary between the palace gardens and the public garden. I stopped at a distinctive yew bush, once cut in the shape of a topiary, but now sadly grown out so its former shape was almost unrecognizable, and counted out seven paces. After a quick check to make sure we were unobserved, I pressed the twelfth brick from the bottom, and was rewarded with a dull grinding noise.
“Push,” I told Jack, putting both hands on the wall and heaving.
Jack did likewise, and the wall sagged inward a few inches.
“I’ll be damned. There is a secret gate.”
“It’s more of an opening than a gate, and it feels like no
