Oscar did finally get to bed that night, although it wasn’t much of a bed, just a saggy old sofa in the corner of a common room that smelled of smoke and cold tea. He had insisted that he wasn’t tired but Ridley had suggested that he sit down while she made some tea and before she’d even turned round to ask if he’d prefer some orange squash, he was fast asleep with the black cat curled up on his chest, worn out by what was certainly the most extraordinary day he had ever experienced.

But in those last few seconds before he fell completely asleep what had danced through his brain was not the unexpected sight of his uncle’s face under the Erl King’s helmet, or the dreadful way his head had lolled, finally unconscious, as the Knights Watchmen had led him away, nor the terrifying white anger in Ridley’s cold glare as she oversaw the process - no, it had been of laughter, of shrieking hysterical laughter as Cuddy had thrown his head back and howled with relief and glee at the sight of his great enemy carried away in chains.

What woke Oscar was not laughter but shouting. He slowly became aware that a voice somewhere was getting nearer, louder. Then the door to the room banged open and he sat up, blinking in the bright sunlight.

“…up! Quick!” It was Murray, thumping on the floor with his crutch, “Oscar, come on! He’s escaped!”

“What? What did you say?” Oscar was on his feet already, “Who’s escaped?”

“Skelton! The Erl King has escaped!” Murray was already back out of the door, banging down the corridor, “He killed a guard, too… Everybody up! Wake up!” He banged on a locked door, “Emergency! Fire! Everyone up! He’s escaped!”

Oscar bolted out after him, suddenly wide awake and very confused.

“When did it happen?”

“No one knows - sometime in the last couple of hours - Get up in there! Emergency! - they’ve been changing guard on him every two hours, you see - new lot went on duty, found one man paralysed stuff with fear, the other one dead… Everyone up! Everyone up!… and Skelton gone…”

People were starting to join them out in the corridor now as Murray thumped along, banging on all the doors. Most of them still looked sleepy and befuddled; nearly all of them looked frightened.

“This is how it’ll be…” said someone, “We’ll keep catching him and he’ll keep escaping and killing people…”

“We should have killed him when we had the chance…” said someone else. Oscar span round to try and make out who had spoken. Whatever he had done, he still didn’t like the idea of someone killing his Uncle Rufus.

“Down to the Great Hall! All of you, come on! Everyone to the Great Hall!” Murray was disappearing round a distant corner, still shouting. Oscar tried to follow him, threading his way through the milling crowds

“Not that way,” it was Ridley, pushing her way through the crowd towards them, “Come on, Oscar, I need your help…”

He followed Ridley through a maze of corridors, including the long arched gallery from which Oscar had first seen the Erl King the previous night, eventually arriving at a large white wooden door. It had a metal plate set into it at head height and when Ridley knocked on it with her Watchman’s black rod it rang dully. Oscar could see that the plate was dented and worn - a lot of Watchmen had knocked at this door before.

The door opened and a Knight Watchman ushered them in. Oscar found himself in a cramped, low ceiling room full of bookshelves. Both the floor and the ceiling sloped, unfortunately in different directions, so that one end of the room, filled by a large window, was a lot more cramped than the other. There was a heavy oak table under the window and a saggy old leather armchair next to it. Both articles of furniture were slightly too large for the space and Oscar particularly couldn’t quite see how they had got the table in the room in the first place.

The room was made even more cramped by the presence of three Knights Watchmen, Cuddy and, sitting in the leather armchair, absorbed in a newspaper, Oscar’s Uncle Rufus.

“Uncle Rufus!” He couldn’t help bursting out, “You’re alright! You didn’t kill that man!” The moment he had spoken, Oscar knew there was something wrong. Everyone in the room stopped to turn and stare at him, apart from Uncle Rufus, who didn’t stir one inch.

“Oh Oscar, I’m sorry, I didn’t think,” Ridley looked guilty, “I should have told you. It isn’t him - it’s an illusion - it’s what you saw last night when you saw the Erl King in the other room… I’m sorry, I really am…”

“That’s alright,” said Oscar, trying to sound unconcerned, “I can see now.” And he really could, too - he could see the armchair right through Uncle Rufus’s unmoving head.

“Yes,” said Ridley, approaching the illusion and looking at it carefully, “It’s starting to fade now - I suppose he thought he wouldn’t need it for long… one way or another…”

“I ’spose not…” Oscar went over to join her, but he didn’t go too close to the illusion. However brave he had tried to sound, he had felt an enormous wave of relief for that moment when he thought that his Uncle was still in the Temple and that Murray had been wrong about what he was saying. For one wonderful second he had thought that it was all going to turn out to be a misunderstanding or part of some clever plan Uncle Rufus and Cuddy had worked out together or something and that everything was going to turn out to be alright. He had, for a moment, allowed himself to hope that his Uncle wasn’t the overbearing Lord Protector and, worse, the monstrous Erl King, but was, in fact, as he had always thought, his strange but harmless old Uncle.

But no, that Uncle, like this one, had been an illusion. That one hadn’t even been a Magi, let alone head of the Knights Watchmen and their worst enemy rolled into one. Oscar looked at the figure sitting in the chair. It looked so like his Uncle Rufus, but he knew it wasn’t him, not the Uncle Rufus he knew - this was Rufus Skelton, ex-Lord Protector and Erl King, terrorist and murderer, and there was no way round it.

“Right,” Cuddy was standing in the middle of the room, looking around eagerly, “We have to turn this room upside down,” he turned to Oscar , “We’re looking for any clues that might help up track him down… I thought that you, Oscar, might like to help…” he bent slightly, coming down to look Oscar in the eyes, “You could be invaluable to us in the hunt, Oscar - you will help, won’t you?”

“Of course I will,” said Oscar.

“Excellent, excellent, I know we can rely on you…” Cuddy seemed remarkably cheerful given the circumstances, “Now, Mistress Ridley, if you and Williams here would like to have a look in the bedroom…”

Everybody went back to examining the room - taking down books, emptying out drawers, lifting up carpets - but Oscar couldn’t take his eyes off the illusion of his Uncle Rufus. He could see now that it wasn’t in the least bit lifelike - for one thing it didn’t move - it didn’t breathe, it didn’t blink or twitch, the hair stayed exactly where it was despite the breeze in the room. And yet Oscar couldn’t help wanting to talk to it, to try and find out why his Uncle had done such terrible things… he felt someone looking at him. He turned round to just catch Cuddy in the act of looking away. He ought to get on with helping examine the room… Uncle Rufus’ newspaper flapped gently.

Wait a minute. Nothing else was moving, why was the newspaper? He reached out gingerly, careful not to touch the illusion - the thought of putting his hand through his Uncle gave him the creeps. The newspaper was real. He bent forward to look at it. He read the headline.

“Ridley,” he said quietly, “Look at this…”

Ridley, who was standing in the door way, methodically going through a bookshelf, looked round.

“What is it, Oscar?”

“Look…” she crossed over and looked over his shoulder. She grew very still all of a sudden.

“Cuddy,” she said, “I think you should see this…”

“What’s all this…” Cuddy’s voice trailed away as he started reading, then he shouted to the next room: “Everyone, get in here, quickly!”

The Magi all huddled round in a tight knot, reading the newspaper over Skelton’s shoulder.

‘SPECIAL GUESTS TO NUMBER 10′, read the headline, “The Prime Minister will be welcoming some very special guests to Downing Street tomorrow when the winners of a children’s television competition…”

“Oh stars and spirits,” Ridley’s voice was hushed, “He wouldn’t…”

“I’m very much afraid,” Cuddy’s voice was determined, “That he almost certainly would.”

Oscar had gone off the whole “let’s set a trap for the Wild Ride using someone as bait” plan when Maggs had been snatched away. He was no keener on it now that he was standing on the stage of the Great Hall with Cuddy and Murray, being the bait once again.

He might have felt better about it if Ridley had been with them, but she was out there in the Temple with a group of volunteers, trying to drive the Erl King towards them and into their trap.

He knew that there Magi hiding all around them, outside the hall, ready to come storming in at the first sign of danger, but it was the thought of what might happen in those few brief moments before the storming started that gave him pause.

It was then that Oscar realised that it wasn’t just him, Cuddy and Murray in the hall. There, coming down one of the aisles through the shadows, was the little black cat. Oscar suddenly realised that the cat hadn’t been with them all through their adventures in the British Museum and he wondered what it had been up to.

It jumped up onto the stage and sauntered over to him and wrapped itself round his legs, purring. Once again he immediately felt a little braver. After all it had been the black cat that had helped him face the Wild Ride last time, perhaps he could do it again, if it stayed with him this time, too.

The silence in the Great Hall was astonishing; especially given the uproar it had been filled with last time he had been in here. Now he could even hear the faint sounds of traffic from outside of the Temple and Murray’s uneven footsteps as he limped back and forth across the stage. He had wanted to go with Ridley but she had worried that his injured leg would slow him down and he had been flattered by her suggestion that they needed someone trained to wait with Cuddy and Oscar.

Now he was evidently anxious for the action to start, which made him, Oscar reflected, the only one who was. Cuddy looked as bad as Oscar felt, almost green around the edges, staring blankly around him with a slack-jawed terror.

Cuddy seemed to come to himself suddenly and opened his mouth to speak, when Murray held his hand up.

“Hear that?”

They all listened. Was that someone shouting, somewhere away in the distance? Then a dog barked, two loud, deep, belling barks that echoed down through the empty corridors of the Temple.

“A Wish Hound,” said Murray.

There was, somewhere, the sound of running feet and incoherent shouting and then someone screamed, a wild, terrified scream that was cut off suddenly in the middle.

Cuddy jumped like a fish on a line and turned around wildly, as if trying to decide which route to take to escape.

“My Lord…” Murray took hold of Cuddy’s arm in a manner that was anything but deferential, “I’m listening…”

“Let go… let go of me…” Cuddy’s voice was faint and he plucked ineffectually at Murray’s hand.

There was more running, more barking, a shout away in the distance, then close by, but on the other side of the building - then somewhere low down, away to the right, echoing in a stairwell, and then clearly, through one of the high windows, as if coming down to them from the roofs, they heard Ridley’s voice, clear and commanding:

“To the north - the kitchens! We have to stop him getting to the Great Hall - at all costs! He mustn’t get in there!”

“No,” whispered Cuddy, “Yes, keep him away… don’t let him in here…”

“Clever,” hissed Murray, he was talking to Oscar, completely ignoring Cuddy “A bluff, you see: She’s hoping the Erl King will do the opposite…”

There was a sound of feet on tiles and then Ridley’s voice came again, further away now and somewhere lower. Oscar strained to hear what she was saying and glanced across at Murray to see if he could hear, but Murray didn’t seem to be listening. He was looking up at the ceiling and his mouth was hanging open.

Oscar didn’t want to look up but he couldn’t help himself. It was dark and shadowy there, above the hanging lights and dusty chandeliers, but there seemed to be something moving in the darkness, a knot of blacker shadow that tensed to and fro across the ceiling like a great spider.

And then that terrible feeling came stealing over him again, the feeling he recognised from earlier, the panic and the fear rising in his throat. He felt suddenly cold and as much as he didn’t want to watch, he couldn’t stop, as the dark shape on the ceiling suddenly turned its blank, white face towards them and then dropped, straight down out of the darkness, into the pit of the Great Hall.

It dropped horribly, agonisingly, slowly, its long coat flapping about it, its arms outspread, and the shadows seemed to drop with it, gathering about it like a cloak as the Hall became dimmer and dimmer.

Oscar’s brain was suddenly full once more of frightening thoughts - he thought of his godfather all alone in his study, of his parents and brother at home, of Maggs, defenceless in the museum, of fire and of ice, and stone walls and dark dungeons.

He tried to shout out to Murray but somehow he couldn’t make any noise, he tried to move but he couldn’t. He realised that he was completely frozen to the spot, half by fear and half by magic, as the room grew dimmer around him and the Erl King dropped out of sight into the orchestra pit below the stage.

This was far worse than before, worse than any of the attacks by the Wild Ride - then he had been scared, but this was more like being caught up in something, being picked up by a great wave of fear and darkness and carried along, no longer able to control where you went or what was happening to you as you were swept along, swept along to some terrible end.

The darkness seemed to well out of the orchestra pit, up over the lip of the stage as the Erl King rose up to their level, his awful white face luminous in the dim light.

Oscar could see that Murray was trying to shout for the others, dragging a collapsed Cuddy after him as he tried to spring the trap, but a suffocating, muffled hush had wrapped itself around them, as if the shadows were soaking up all the sound. Everything seemed to be happening with an agonising, glacial silence.

The Erl King stepped onto the stage, advancing evenly, inexorably, towards Cuddy, when something bumped against Oscar’s leg. Before he knew what had happened, the shock of the touch made him jump in fright and stumble forwards, tripping over the black cat - for that’s what had brushed against him - pitching him directly towards the Erl King.

The tall, thin figure turned with a surprising speed and, equally quickly, suddenly reared back away from him, stumbling backwards itself now, back towards the edge of the stage. The shadows seemed to recoil too, rushing in around him like the gathering up of cloth.

Suddenly there was a feeling as his ears had popped and all the outside sounds came rushing in at him and he fell backwards, staggering up against the wooden panelling at the back of the stage.

He turned and hammered on it desperately, unable to think of anything else to do.

“Quick! Quick!” he shouted, “He’s here! He’s here! Quick! Quick!”

The Erl King started towards him, as a secret door in the panelling banged open and a gang of Magi came tumbling through, all on top of each other, spilling out onto the stage.

The Erl King recoiled again, caught off guard once more and turned away, back towards the front of the stage, the shadows rushing in to cover him.

And then all the doors were open and Magi were rushing through, all shouting, and every chair in the Hall, in one movement, suddenly reared up on its back legs and came galloping down the aisles towards the stage.

The shadows around the Erl King seemed to bunch together into a column and through them Oscar could see the thin red figure start to climb upwards, stepping up through the air towards the ceiling.

At this the chandeliers above stretched out their great, glowing arms and reached down through the shadows towards him on great tentacles of chain. At their touch, the shadows boiled away into nothing and, wrapped about in light and fire, the figure fell back onto the stage.

Murray was suddenly beside Oscar, grabbing him out of the way as the Erl King hauled himself to his feet, clawing at the fierce chains around him, thick ends of shadow trying to extinguish the glaring lights.

And Murray dragged Oscar from the stage as the first wave of chairs, conjured into life by the Magi, leapt up past them and were instantly flung back again as the Erl King screamed a terrible, unearthly scream of rage.

But the next row of chairs were on him before the first had even landed, and then the third and fourth. Magi scrambled for cover as chairs flew to and fro, and the Erl King struggled to throw them off, crashing back and forth across the stage from end to end.

Then Oscar suddenly realised that Ridley had arrived and was standing next to them, speaking in a high, clear, incomprehensible voice, with other Knights Watchmen joining her in her incantation. And, as Oscar followed their gestures upwards, he saw the great, glittering figures of the stained glass above the back of the stage detach themselves from their leading and leap down onto the stage. Now four, now five of them - gentlemen in ceremonial robes and long white wigs, knights in armour with thin swords of glass and the dragon, completely white but for its shining golden eyes.

All of them became lit with the spreading glow of the chandeliers as they closed upon the Erl King, burning with their bright, translucent colours, catching hold of him and bearing him down to the floor in a great blaze of light.

A great silence fell over the hall and Oscar could hear the assembled Magi breathing hard around him, exhausted by the excitement and the effort of the magic. The glowing, stained glass figures bent and lifted up the Erl King, now tightly bound by the fiery chains of the chandeliers and held him, suspended, over the middle of the stage.

The crowd gasped, Oscar included, for they could suddenly see that, with the shadows burnt away and his magic gone, the Erl King was not the huge, distorted figure of their nightmares, not a Goblin King or fearsome demon, but a man, a man in a long, dark scarlet coat and gloves, with a mask of white bone over his face.

Ridley moved forward past Oscar to stand next to Cuddy, who was staring, like the rest of them, at this extraordinary revelation.

“Take the helmet off,” she whispered.

Cuddy turned to look at her, repeating, dully:

“Take the helmet off…”

Ridley spoke more loudly, addressing the stained glass giants:

“Take the helmet off. Show us his face.”

The dragon reached forward with its long, slim, glass claws and hooked the helmet back and off. For a moment the head dropped backwards, out of sight as the helmet came off, but then he lifted it and stared back at them all, sweaty and bloody but still defiant in defeat.

And once again Oscar was surprised by the face of his godfather, Uncle Rufus.

“No, Ridley, absolutely not.”

They were standing in a long gallery in the Temple with high arched windows all down one side, and Ridley and Cuddy were arguing.

“Cuddy, he said it, you heard him. He knew something was going to happen to the Temple - he said the Erl King was planning something - anything he knows could help us.”

“Do we believe him?” Cuddy arched an eyebrow, “Skelton has said all kinds of things in the past, would say anything now, to get his way - which is precisely why no one talks to him, not now.”

“But I think that now he’s telling the truth,” Ridley protested, “I think that attack on the Museum was a feint, a distraction.”

“Felt real enough to me,” growled Murray, who was now nursing an injured leg from his fight with the sphinx.

“This is a precarious situation, Mistress Ridley,” Cuddy was obviously not going to be swayed, “The last thing we need is Skelton getting involved, threatening everything we’ve worked for…”

Oscar couldn’t quite muster the energy to join in with their argument - he was tired and was only now starting to realise that Maggs had really, truly gone, just at the moment when he was realising just how much he could do with her help right about now. And the worst of it was that it was all his fault - if he hadn’t suggested the plan in the Museum, hadn’t given Thursby the idea about attacking the White Tower, hadn’t gone to Hammages in the first place, none of this would have happened and Maggs would have been perfectly alright. He slumped against a window sill, staring out at the night, feeling sorry for himself and even sorrier for Maggs.

The windows looked out onto a dark quadrangle, surrounded on all sides by tall walls. There was a lighted window in a wall opposite and he realised that he could see his Uncle Rufus was sitting there, under the window, apparently reading a book. Those must be the rooms where they had locked him away.

For a moment Oscar looked around for some way to open the window and shout to him, but he supposed that would only give Cuddy and Ridley something else to argue about. He continued staring out, hoping to get his Uncle’s attention just by the force of his stare.

There was another window next to Uncle Rufus’. The room inside was only dimly lit, partly by the light from Uncle Rufus’ room and partly by the moonlight. What had caught Oscar’s attention was something moving in there, a patch of solid dark in the indistinct twilight. He had seen it out of the corner of his eye and now he watched more carefully, trying to see it again.

There it was… something black, twisting, turning… it was hard to make anything out - it was like a piece of the night itself - darker than the orange glow of the London sky, darker even than the shadows of the courtyard - a piece of night twisting and turning, as if it were searching for something, sniffing for a scent. Something about its odd straining made Oscar uncomfortable - it moved wrongly somehow… and then it made another twist and something ghostly white glimmered into view in the moonlight.

A long, smooth, bone-white, skull, gleaming in the moonlight as it turned towards the window, its featureless face uplifted to the night, scanning for some trace. And then it seemed to sense Oscar on the other side of the courtyard, and it turned its emptiness full at him and a single elongated, taloned hand came up to the glass and tapped once, twice - it could only mean one thing - his godfather had been right: The Erl King, Master of the Wild Ride, was in the Temple!

Oscar was rooted to the spot. He tried to shout out to the others but all he could do was make a sort of faint peeping noise in his throat. Even from across the courtyard he could feel those thin, cold claws leaving a thin scratch of ice down his arms.

He wrenched himself away from the window, stumbling into Ridley, who grabbed him and stopped him falling.

“Oscar! Please - I need to talk to Lord Cuddy…”

“…Uncle Rufus…” was all Oscar could manage.

“I know, we’re going to sort it out, I promise…”

“No! He’s here…”

“He better be,” said Cuddy, “I put a guard on the door.”

“…not Uncle… he’s here…”

“Oscar?” Ridley had caught the tone of fear in his voice, “What is it?”

“…Erl King… he’s here…”

“What?”

“…Uncle Rufus’ room…”

Ridley lunged at the window, dragging Oscar after her.

“Where is he?”

“He was in the room next to Uncle Rufus… he’s gone now…”

“No! There, look - a floor up…” Ridley was right, Oscar caught the briefest glimpse of that ghostly white face, but he knew what it was, without doubt.

“Cuddy! We’ve got to get Skelton out of there!” Ridley turned back to Cuddy to find him standing in the middle of the gallery, mouth hanging open in shock. Oscar could see that his hands were trembling. At the sound of Ridley’s voice, he jerked round, blinking.

“No!” his voice was almost a shriek, “No time! We’ve got to get out!”

“Pull yourself together!” Ridley grabbed hold of him, shaking him vigorously, “Look at Oscar: is he panicking?”

“Actually…” said Oscar.

“No,” Ridley cut him off, “This is our chance, man: he doesn’t know we’ve seen him - for once we have the element of surprise…”

“She’s right, my lord,” said Murray, “We could catch him!”

“Catch him?” squeaked Cuddy.

“We’ll need teams,” Murray was evidently thinking furiously, “We’ll need to sweep the whole Temple thoroughly…”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Ridley grinned at Oscar, “We already have a plan, don’t we Oscar?”

Which was how Oscar found himself sitting in the dark, listening to the distant sounds of fighting and the plashing of the fountain beside them, straining to make out shapes in the dark and secretly glad that Maggs was holding his hand.

The plan was simple and he was secretly afraid that it stood a good chance of working: if the Wild Ride had come for Oscar and Maggs before, then why wouldn’t they again? Especially if they thought the two of them were all on their own in the dark.

Ridley had jumped at the idea, and at the time Oscar had been pleased to have thought of it, but now they were actually sitting there, in the terrible shadowy silence, it didn’t seem like such great plan at all.

In the dim light, however, Oscar became gradually aware that they might not be completely alone: he could see shapes moving, something that looked like the shadows of people criss-crossing the room.

This gallery was dedicated to everyday objects from ancient times and gradually Oscar realised that what he was seeing was ordinary people - the people who had once owned the objects on display - going about their ordinary business just as they had thousands of years before.

Greeks bargaining in the agora, Romans gossiping in their villas, women in the kitchens, men at the plough, merchants weighing out spices and actors practicing with their masks.

The shades were, at first, muddled and confused, walking though each other, getting lost in each other’s history, but Oscar soon discovered that by squinting and sort of focusing on different parts of the room, you could make the little scenes stand out clearly.

Close to him were the more recent events: a dark-skinned legionary sitting on the edge of his camp bed in the bleak Northumbrian winter, lacing up his sandals and shivering into his cloak. But at the far end of the room he could just glimpse some exotically braided and painted Greek bowing before the small statue, asking some unknown favour of his god.

Oscar was about to nudge Maggs to see if she had noticed this strange display when he realised that something was changing in the scenes: now the legionary was leaping from bed, alarmed, grabbing up his gladius and his helmet, ready for battle. The merchant in the forum was packing away his spices as quickly as he could, the cook, panicked, doused her fire with water, the worshipper imploring the gods frantically.

Some terrible doom was descending on all the ghosts: Scythians, Persians, Huns, Picts, Barbarians and Monsters: rampaging warriors at the walls of the town - revolution and battle, chaos and confusion… Oscar could feel their panic rising in him and he looked desperately around the room, trying to see what they were afraid of…

…A natural disaster! - Walls were shaking, cracks opening at their feet: an earthquake! Mighty Poseidon, god of the sea, whose hand was on the roots of the mountains, was displeased with men! The earth shook and roared and the sea rose up in a great tidal wave…

And Oscar found himself frozen with terror as the surface of the fountain beside him bunched itself up and reached out towards them.

Then all the water began to move, faces and shapes passing across it - ancient ocean gods, monstrous fish of the deep, the long forgotten, pallid faces of the drowned - and a hundred tiny water spouts reaching out for them, searching and feeling their way, shining in the dim light, like the grasping arms of a sea anemone.

Oscar tried to cry out, to warn Ridley and Maggs, to trip their trap, but he was terrified that the sound of his voice would attract those blindly waving arms and then something touched him, the slimy touch of something long dead and deep submerged, that passed over his face and, just as suddenly, was gone.

The warmth of the museum and the noises of the night rushed in on him as the shadow receded, shouts and the clattering of boots and the rattling of swords and under it all, the fountain still playing beside him.

“Move, all of you! Oscar, are you alright? Can you speak?”

It was Ridley, running down the steps behind him, from the gallery where she had been hiding. Oscar tried, shakily, to get to his feet, but before he could she had picked him up and carried him to the doorway, away from the fountain where the faint, sour smell of the deeps still lingered.

Magi were everywhere now with lights, running through the galleries, trying to track the Darklings. Oscar had the impression that there was something very wrong, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it - he was still stunned by his close encounter.

“I’m sorry Ridley…” he stammered, thinking she was cross that his plan hadn’t worked, “I just couldn’t…”

“Oh, Oscar,” Ridley grabbed his arms, rubbing them as if to try and drive out the cold, “No one could - I couldn’t - I just wasn’t ready… so stupid… poor Maggs… I should have waited for more men…”

But Oscar wasn’t listening. He had stopped listening at: ‘Poor Maggs’. That was what was wrong. He looked around, wildly, trying to spot the old woman in the rushing lights and running figures around them. Poor Maggs. Where was she?

“Where’s Maggs?”

Ridley stopped talking and stared at him, then she seized him and hugged him hard and that’s when he knew that something really was terribly wrong.

“He took her, Oscar: the Darklings took her,” Ridley squeezed him hard, “They took her and escaped with her and it was my fault - not your fault, you understand? Mine. But you’ll see, we’ll get her back, I promise, we’ll find him and we’ll get her back, if it’s the last thing I do.”

Ridley seemed determined to make good on her promise as soon as she could. She sent scouts out to try and pick up the trail of the Wild Ride beyond the museum and then set about trying to discover what they had been up to inside.

They followed a Wish Hound called Diamond, his head now down to the tiled floor, now lifted up, snuffing the air, down through an endless gallery, across the head of a monumental flight of stairs, down a long corridor, through more galleries and finally to a tall wooden door, left half open in the shadows.

“Of course,” said Ridley, “The Magical Gallery - well, that makes sense - but what were they doing here?”

She pulled the door open further and Oscar followed her inside. Illuminated by the glow from Ridley’s staff, Oscar could see that the room was small and cramped. It seemed little more than a circular corridor, with glass display cases set into every wall.

“Are these all magical things?” he asked Ridley.

“Spot on - a lot of the people who helped set up the British Museum were Magi - and they had a large collection of magical objects for a while - these days the more powerful objects are kept in the Temple, but we leave a small exhibition here.”

They moved round the room, following Diamond. Oscar now saw that, rather than being a corridor, there was actually another room within the room, a central, circular space with large display cases in the middle of it.

Diamond was sat in front of one of these cases, looking back over his shoulder at Ridley, expectantly. She came up behind him and ruffled his ears.

“What is, eh, Diamond, old chap, what have you found?”

Oscar joined her and discovered that they were looking a white, life-sized sculpture of a man’s face. It was an extraordinarily detailed sculpture: Oscar could even see sparse hairs on the man’s upper lip and a mole under one eye.

“Hm… Adam Cowper, eh?”

Oscar looked at the label: ‘Death mask of Adam Cowper’.

“What’s a death mask?”

“Oh, when someone dies they take a plaster cast of their face.”

So it wasn’t a sculpture at all! It was an actual cast of a dead man’s face! There was something about that that made Oscar shiver a little, standing here in the dark, staring down at a dead face. Ridley was still speaking.

“In this case we have Adam Cowper, who, I think I’ve got this right, was a rebel who tried to destroy the Temple. You, what did the demons want with you?”

For a moment Oscar thought Ridley was talking to him, and was shocked at her being so rude, but before he could speak, the death mask suddenly jerked and twisted, the eyebrows knotting up and the mouth writhing to one side with a gritty sound that Oscar could hear though the glass of the display. The mouth opened and Oscar discovered that he could see through it to the objects behind it in the case. The voice was little more than a grainy whisper.

“I will not speak to such as you…”

“In the name of the Order I compel you to speak!”

“I cannot speak to such as you…”

“You cannot do otherwise!”

“I cannot speak: I am forbidden!” The face was contorted now into a grimace as it were being tortured.

“Its been enchanted,” said Ridley, “Forbidding him to answer us: I command you…”

The mouth opened in a silent cry and the expression was so desperate that Oscar grabbed Ridley’s arm:

“Stop it! Please, Ridley, stop him, you’re hurting him!”

“It’s just a spirit ensorcelled to the mask, Oscar, it’s not a person, I promise you.”

“Please stop it, listen, I have an idea…” he lent in closer to the mask, “If you can’t tell us anything directly, can you at least give us a clue?”

The mask’s features gave one last spasm and then relaxed. For a moment nothing happened and then it opened its mouth again.

“Held captive long in fear and pain, beyond mere human punishments and chains.”

Then the face relaxed again into its cast expression.

“Well,” said Ridley, “That’s helpful.” She turned and walked away from the case, “None of this makes any sense - they’ve broken in here, spent all this time fighting us, delaying us, but they get here and nothing’s gone, nothing’s… Oh, my stars…”

“Ridley? What is it?”

“What if that’s precisely what they were doing, Oscar? What they were just trying to distract us? We thought we were trapping them here, but what if this was the trap - a trap to draw us all away from… the Temple!”