The Knight Errant never saw it coming. Oscar barely saw it himself, it all happened so quickly. The Yeoman opened the door for them and was about to announce them to whoever was inside when Ridley pushed past him and crossed the tiny room to where the guard sat in his green coat. He barely had to try and stand up before Ridley reached down and placed her hand on his forehead.

The guard slumped back down, his eyes rolling up into his head. Ridley hauled him up and tried to arrange him so he’d stay in his chair. The Yeoman stayed in the doorway, staring at her. Oscar squeezed past into the room, the little black cat padding after him. Ridley turned and winked.

“I couldn’t be bothered arguing with another one…” She nodded over Oscar’s head to the Yeoman, “Don’t worry - I’ll see to it from here - you can get off.” The Yeoman looked as if he felt he ought to say something, but instead he just shook his head and closed the door behind him.

“Ridley,” said Maggs in a chiding voice, “I know you’re enjoying all this running around, but I don’t think there’s…”

“Maggs, Maggs,” Ridley held up a bunch of keys and jangled them softly, “Never mind that. Are you ready?”

She turned to face the other door in the room. It looked no different to the door they had come in through, but even Oscar could tell there was something strange about it. Perhaps some magic was beginning to rub off on him, or perhaps the effect of the Black Chamber was so strong that anyone might have noticed it. It was an odd feeling, not of wrongness but rather, of rightness, that the door was just a door, nothing more than a few bits of wood, that there was nothing special about it at all.

Now that Oscar thought about it there was, in a way, something special about all doors: doors led somewhere, or were the way out of somewhere else. They let things in or kept things out, they hid secrets and stood open in welcome, but this door did none of these things. This was just some planks covering a hole in a wall that was just a pile of stones. There was nothing interesting about it. There was no magic in it at all.

“Ugh,” Ridley shivered, “It’s horrible, isn’t it? Well, now, let’s see shall we?” She squared her shoulders and walked towards the door, the keys jangling gently in her hand. She examined the lock and picked a key that looked about the right size. It fitted. She turned it and Oscar heard the lock clunk over. She put her hand on the door and took a deep breath.

“Well, here goes nothing,” she said and pushed the door open.

It was walking through the doorway that was the odd thing, because there was nothing odd about it, it was just a doorway and you walked through, except… except that it was like running out of a warm house, through a storm, into a warm car. There was a brief cold moment of solid reality, of being nothing more than a person, a walking lump of flesh and blood, and then you were through again, in the still silence of the Black Chamber.

Oscar wasn’t sure what he had expected, but it wasn’t dark and dank and cold and terrible. It was a corridor just like the ones they had walked down to get here, with wooden floorboards underfoot and stone walls, nothing remarkable or particularly horrible.

There was perhaps something, if he thought about it, a peculiarly dead silence, an isolation from all outside sounds and reality, just the feeling of the three of them standing alone in a corridor with no sense of any outside world.

“Gives me the creeps,” said Ridley, “So what do we think?”

To the left the corridor turned a corner and disappeared into the darkness, while to the right it ended in a perfectly ordinary door that didn’t look like any kind of prison that Oscar could think of.

“I can’t hear anything,” said Maggs, cocking her head, “I don’t think there’s anyone else in here…”

“All the same,” said Ridley, “I don’t want to spend any longer in here than I have to… Maggs and Oscar, you try down here, I’ll…”she stopped suddenly and gave a strange, strangled cough.

“Stop there…” said a voice from behind them.

There was something silvery sticking out of Ridley’s coat, glinting in the lamplight: a piece of jewellery? Oscar hadn’t seen that before. Then it was getting inexplicably smaller, and then it had gone and, with another bubbling cough Ridley dropped to her knees.

“The robes… no interference,” said the voice, “I had to.”

And something behind them, by the entrance, moved, the shadows bunching and changing shape and suddenly Oscar understood, because there was the Erl King in the Black Chamber with them, holding a sword stiffly out in front of him while Ridley knelt on the floor, clutching at her chest, blood on her hands.

“Ridley!” Maggs rushed forward to grab hold of her. Without the Erl King’s usual terrifying aura, evidently dampened by the Chamber, there was nothing to stop Oscar running at the dark figure and beating at it with his fists.

“You… you…” he couldn’t think of a word strong enough. The Erl King picked him up by his collar and threw him to the floor, then he pushed Maggs aside, pulling up Ridley roughly, so that she groaned.

“Don’t!” Maggs grabbed at him, “What are you doing?”

“I had to…” the voice sounded odd: hollow and distant, distorted, lost, “Follow me.” And he stalked away down the corridor, Ridley slung over one arm.

Maggs helped Oscar to his feet and they stumbled after him, following him round a corner, to a small room dominated by a great, solid wooden door. The Erl King paused for a moment and then gave it a kick that shivered it against the frame. Another kick and the door sprang open and they passed through into the shadows beyond.

It was exciting, but Oscar was secretly glad that when he looked down all he could see were clouds - it made the whole thing a little less real. Occasionally there was a break in the cloud cover and he caught a glimpse of glowing ribbons of roads and little specks of house lights and realised quite how high up they were and he had to look away. The problem then was catching sight of the moon, which was full, bright and altogether a lot closer than he was used to seeing it.

It was still undeniably exciting, though. He had no idea how fast they were going, but the clouds appeared to be dashing past beneath them and a fierce wind was rattling the windows. That and the boom of the huge, leathery wings, beating steadily against the night.

When Ridley had demanded a fast means of travel, the Gnomes had immediately ushered them up to the roof, where they had rolled back a section to reveal, in a small hanger, the strangest craft Oscar had ever seen. It looked something like a small boat with clawed feet underneath and two great, folded bat’s wings attached to it. The Gnomes had rolled it up onto the roof and the wings had parted and stretched and flapped experimentally with a creaking shake and Ridley had laughed and applauded.

“An ornithopter! Moons, Maggs, you knew how to travel in style, didn’t you?”

“What’s an ornithcopter?” It didn’t look entirely safe to Oscar - it appeared to be made solely of wood, leather and brass fittings and it squeaked and juddered ominously.

“Ornithopter,” Ridley corrected, “It’s sort of like a plane, only it flaps its wings like a bird - it could only work with magic, of course, but it’s worth the effort, don’t you think?” She patted the wooden hull affectionately. The boat shaped bit in the middle had two eyes painted on it at the front and Oscar could have sworn that one of them winked at him.

The Gnomes had opened a hatch and let down a set of folding steps.

“Is it safe?” wondered Maggs.

“You tell me, you built it,” grinned Ridley

“Then it probably isn’t.”

“Come on, all aboard,” and Ridley ushered them all into the cabin. Oscar had barely had time to find a seat before, with a sickening lurch; the Ornithopter had flung itself into the night sky and started flapping up, laboriously, towards the clouds.

Now they were actually airborne and flying through the darkness, though, the whole thing seemed a lot more exciting rather than just dangerous. The cabin was small, but snug - liberally provided with large amounts of red velvet upholstery and dark, varnished wood. Erik and Karl were there, running up and down a control panel that was covered with brass knobs, little red lights and wavering dials, while Ridley and Maggs sat at a table in the middle of the cabin examining a map and arguing over directions.

The cat had somehow managed to get a porthole open and was even now sitting right on the prow of the craft, staring out into the darkness. It didn’t look terribly safe to Oscar, but the cat seemed perfectly happy and he certainly wasn’t going to go out to fetch it back in.

“I think, finally, we could be ahead of him,” said Ridley, looking up from the map, “This could be our chance to catch him out.”

“How?” Oscar still wasn’t quite sure what, exactly, they were doing.

“Well, we now know something that the Erl King doesn’t, that Maggs’ researches had something to do with Cowper and the Bl…” she glanced at the gnomes but they hadn’t noticed, “With the original White Tower…”

“So if we find out what that is…”

“…then we might just have discovered how to stop the Erl King.”

“Let’s just hope I was right,” Maggs smiled grimly.

And the ornithopter swooped down towards the clouds and the distant fiery glow to the south, where the lights of London burned on through the night.

The ornithopter belled out its wings and swung into towards the ground with a great clattering, raising a storm of ravens around it as it landed on a small patch of grass within the Tower of London. Only a single raven remained, standing quite still on the grass, watching the ornithopter with one sceptical eye as the craft folded up its wings and opened the hatch to let to occupants out. The raven didn’t look terribly impressed with all this showing off. The cat, who was still perched up on the prow, stretched leisurely, just to let the raven know that she wasn’t terribly impressed with it.

Two Yeomen of the Guard came running up to the ornithopter as Ridley, Oscar and Maggs climbed out. They were accompanied by an officious looking man in the bottle green coat of the Knights Errant who was shouting at the new arrivals.

“Halt! Halt and identify yourselves in the name of the Royal Order of Magi!”

“You identify yourself,” retorted Ridley, then she squinted at him, suspiciously, “I know you, don’t I? Didn’t you used to work in the library?”

“You must identify yourselves,” the man seemed put out that Ridley had recognised him.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Ridley stepped down from the ornithopter and started off across the grass with Oscar and Maggs after her, “You know fully well who we are.”

“You must identify yourselves,” the man was getting quite cross now, “It’s after curfew - you have to identify yourself if challenged by a Knight Errant. The rules apply even to you, Ridley” The man had been trying to get in front of them, to make Ridley stop, but now she stopped of her own accord and rounded on him.

“That’s Mistress Ridley to you, and what on earth are you talking about? What curfew? What’s going on?”

“The Lord Chancellor, in accordance to the wishes of the Prime Minister, has instituted a curfew, Mistress Ridley, to be enforced by the Knights Errant. No one is allowed on the streets between the hours of eight and eight unless they have the appropriate papers. Do you have the appropriate papers Mistress Ridley?”

“We are Knights Errant. This is the Lord Protector, you fool.”

“I answer only to the Lord Lector, Mistress, and you would do well not to call his representative a fool.”

“Now, you listen to me, fool, and listen carefully,” Ridley was speaking calmly and evenly but Oscar could tell that she was getting properly angry now, “For all your curfews and patrols the Erl King is still at large and, very likely, on his way here, if he’s not here already…” She paused and sniffed the air, as if searching for him. The man blanched.

“The… Darklings… here?”

“Yes - now why don’t you do something genuinely useful and go and contct the Temple: fetch help - when I say help, I mean someone competent.”

“I’ll…” the man was backing away, “I’ll go and…” and he turned and ran back across the green towards the main gates.

Ridley turned to the Yeoman, “Are there any more of them around? Guarding somewhere, possibly?”

The elder of the Yeoman look at her for a moment and then apparently made up his mind about something.

“Up in the White Tower,” he said, nodding at it with his head, “I’ll show you.”

“Here we are, here we are, make yourselves comfortable, sit here, Oscar,” Maggs was bustling about, plainly overjoyed to find them here with her.

Alberecht appeared in the doorway again and coughed to get their attention.

“If I may, m’lady,” he began, “You won’t… I mean you might not… you probably don’t recall, you taught me a speech for guests and…” he pulled at his beard in embarrassment, “…I never really got to say it…”

“Well, then,” Maggs was obviously delighted, “Now seems a perfect chance, doesn’t it? I’d love to hear it and I’m the others would, too, wouldn’t you?”

Alberecht stalked into the centre of the room, straightened his waistcoat, and then started in quite a different, although just as self-important, voice:

“Welcome, gentle folk, to our tower. Never since the Giant Siward himself laid down his heavy bones has this house had more anticipated or more honoured guests. Welcome one and all to our house, to your house, to Siward’s Howe.” He coughed again and looked down at his boots, suddenly abashed.

Behind them on the mantelpiece Erik clapped enthusiastically and stamped his foot until Alberecht flapped a hand at him to shut him up.

“Thank you, very much,” started Ridley, but Alberecht nodded at her curtly.

“That’s alright. Just wanted to say it, that’s all. Tea’s on its way.” Then he turned his back on them and stumped out of the room.

“Aren’t they delightful?” Maggs gazed after the small figure with a proud look, “He was terribly brave, you know, in the fight with the Erl King, they all were, bless them, quite heroic.”

“So the Erl King brought you here?” Oscar asked.

“Oh yes, although I’m not sure how,” Maggs’ brow furrowed, “He had me in some castle, I think, but I didn’t recognise it - Darklings came in the middle of the night and swept me up and the next thing I saw was this tower, although I didn’t recognise it then, of course.”

“So you weren’t with him in… in the house?” Ridley was anxious and Maggs’ face fell.

“No, but the gnomes told me about it - they have their spies… I… the terrible thing, Ridley, is that I don’t know those people, I’m not sure even sure if I ever knew them - I just can’t remember - they might have been my family, that must have been what he thought, but I just don’t know…” she stared at the fire, blankly, “Poor things…”

“I’m sorry Maggs, if we’d just been more careful with him…”

“With who?”

“Of course, you don’t know!” Ridley glanced at Oscar and he nodded at her to go on, “Skelton, Maggs, Skelton was… is the Erl King…”

“Skelton… the Lord…” Maggs was amazed.

“He attacked the Temple after he snatched you and we caught him, Oscar and I, but he escaped and tried attacking the Prime Minister of all things, before… well, before all this…”

“Skelton,” there was steel in Maggs’ voice, but she caught sight of Oscar watching her and she stopped.

“He’s mad,” Ridley nodded to herself, “He must be quite mad.”

“Just bad,” said Maggs, grimly, adding, “Sorry, Oscar, but there it is.”

Oscar didn’t know quite what to say, but before he could think of anything there was the clatter of crockery and a group of gnomes entered, carrying between them a huge tray, swaying with tea things, cake stands and toast racks. One of the gnomes was Erik, who waved to them cheerfully, causing the tray to tilt alarmingly. Karl was following behind shouting orders.

“Maintain your position there, Korporal; tray stability is of the utmost importance. Now, squad, advance to the coffee table,” the tray rattled over to a low table and the gnomes, standing on tiptoe, slid it onto the top.

“Excellent work, men,” said Karl, turning to Oscar and Ridley, “Now, Mistress and Master, what can we get you? Crumpet? Tea cake?”

“Fondant Fancy?” suggested Erik

“Muffin, scone, pikelet or scotch pancake? Toast?”

“Jam tart? Fairy cake? Gnome cake? Goblin cake? Rock cake? Coffee cake? Fruit cake?”

“Please, please,” Maggs held up her hands in mock horror, “I think we need some tea first of all…”

“Assam?” began Karl, “Darjeeling, Oolong, English Breakfast…”

“Why don’t you choose?” interjected Ridley.

“Nothing else?” Erik sounded dismayed. He gestured towards the tray: “I got some biscuits out.”

“What biscuits?” Oscar couldn’t resist the question, but Ridley cut Erik off before he could get started.

“But why?” She leant across to Maggs, “Why did he bring you here?”

“I was wondering that - he obviously thought there was something here that he needed me to understand…”

“He was trying to get into her ladyship’s study when we caught up with him,” offered Erik, pouring the tea.

“Then the study it is,” said Ridley.

The word ’study’ had conjured up for Oscar the image of a room lined with bookshelves, dimly lit with desks and teetering stacks of paper, but Maggs’ study was a quite different sort of place. It was a huge, long, high room, with white painted walls and wooden floor boards stained and burned from countless experiments and spells. Both walls were lined with long benches covered with all manner of equipment and tools, scientific, occult and downright nonsensical. Distillation flasks stood next to astrolabes, Van der Graaf generators next to crystal balls. There were magic circles drawn on the floor and posters showing the atomic elements on the wall. On one side were shelves full of magical books that whispered and creaked in their sleep, on the other a cabinet full of chemicals in brown glass bottles. At the far end of the room was a large desk on a dais in front of a blackboard. Above it, hanging from the rafters, was a stuffed crocodile.

Oscar wandered down the room, gazing in wonder at the extraordinary things arrayed around him: a pickled two headed lamb, crystals that had grown into a miniature city, tiny quartz towers full of strange, shifting lights, a vivarium in which, as he watched, a group of tiny people crept nervously from under some foliage, only to dart back under cover, angrily shaking spears like needles, when they saw his giant head looming down over them, a crucible on a retort stand under which a small dragon lay curled up and sleeping, smoke drifting lazily from its nose. Eventually, however, he reached the desk at the end, only to discover on it half a sandwich and an untouched cup of tea.

Erik squirmed a little, “You did say not to touch anything, before you left, I mean,” he said to Maggs in a pleading manner: “We dusted it every day, though…” Maggs just stared at him, “I’ll get rid of it, then, shall I?”

“Cowper,” said Ridley, thoughtfully, “The Black Chamber.”

Oscar looked round to see what she was talking about. She was staring over his head at the blackboard. The board was cluttered with words and notes, long chemical formulae and incomprehensible diagrams, but several words in large capitals sat together down the left hand side, each outlined and joined up with arrows.

“The Red Dragon,” read Ridley, “The King’s Binding.”

“What does that mean?” asked Oscar.

“I’m not sure,” said Maggs, shaking her head, “But it must have been the last thing I wrote up there before I left…”

“Researches into the Erl King, do you think?” asked Ridley, “Well, let’s see, we start with Cowper, there at the top…”

“Adam Cowper?” suggested Oscar, “The face from the museum?”

“Adam Cowper, 1789 to date unknown,” it was Erik. He had climbed up on a bookcase and had a book propped up in front of him. He was laboriously following the words with his finger, “Magi, second class, Libertarian and Pantisocrat. Argued that the Royal Order should open its doors to all applicants and that everyone should be taught the practice of magic. Chiefly remembered now for his later argument that the Great Work of the Royal Order was a ’slavery of spirits and a wound upon the breast of our nation’…”

“That’s him,” interrupted Ridley, “Tried to free the spirits and to blow up the Temple.”

“…was accused of a conspiracy of violence against the Royal Order and of communing with Dark Spirits…”

“Dark Spirits?” Oscar was having difficulty following all this history, “Are those the same as Darklings?”

“Dark Spirits,” repeated Erik, flicking through the pages of the book, “Dark Spirits, Dark Spirits… this only goes up to Cunning Fiends…”

“Yes, thank you,” Ridley cut him off, “They are Darklings, Oscar, spirits that aren’t governed by the Great Work, which follow the Red Dragon instead of the White, you might say, which would explain point three on the blackboard.”

“Because they’re not part of the Great Work,” interrupted Maggs, “They’re a lot more tricksery to control, you see, you have to make deals and pacts and it’s a dangerously business.”

“Now, this Cowper thought that all Spirits ought to be free,” continued Ridley, “That the Great Work was a horrible torture to them and that it ought to be stopped, so he tried to do deals with Dark Spirits to try and destroy it. They caught him, of course, and locked him up… only…” Ridley’s voice tailed off - she was staring at the blackboard again.

“Only what?” demanded Oscar.

“Of course!” Ridley jumped down off the workbench and started pacing up and down, “That explains it!”

“Explains what?”

“If Cowper was dealing with Darklings, the White Tower wouldn’t be enough - it relies on the White Dragon for its power - it wouldn’t hold him…”

“Of course,” Maggs was nodding.

“The Black Chamber!” Ridley pointed at the blackboard dramatically, “I never really believed in it, myself, but it would make perfect sense.”

“Don’t say that name!” There was a flurry and a thud as Erik stamped his foot in fury and the book slid off the shelf and tumbled to the ground, “It’s bad luck!”

“Oh for goodness’ sake,” snapped Ridley, “It’s been written up on this blackboard for years…”

“And look what happened!” shrieked Erik. Oscar suddenly realised that the little gnome was close to tears, “Look what’s happened to you, ladyship!”

“Alright, alright,” Maggs made shushing movements with her hands, “Calm down, please…”

“But what is… you know… it?” Oscar didn’t want to upset the little man any further.

“The… it’s… look, if you thought the White Tower was a scary place, then its nothing to the… to this place. It’s supposed to be the most fearful fate that can befall a Magi - an eddy in the flow of magic that no spirits can enter or leave… it’s hard to explain to anyone who has never worked a spell, but the power of magic flows all around us, all around everything - sometimes faintly, sometimes, like in a place like this, in an almost overwhelming flood. It’s like a great wind, carrying a multitude of voices, all singing and chanting, fascinating, incredible songs…

“But the… this place we’re talking about - its supposed to be a gap in the flow of magic, caused by the Great Work, a kind of whirlpool that no spirit can enter or escape from. If a Magi were caught up in it, they would be completely cut off from magic, from any kind of power or spell, completely alone… Imagine… imagine never hearing the voice of your mother again, of your friends, imagine never hearing music, or the sea, or wind in the trees… imagine there being nothing but silence and loneliness and fear: that’s what it would be like…”

Ridley fell silent and Oscar suddenly realised that that silence wasn’t silent at all - it was full of small, inconsequential noises: their breathing, Erik snuffling slightly, a tap somewhere, dripping, a clock ticking, the snoring of the little dragon, the distant sounds of the Tower, Gnomes going about their business. He tried to imagine absolute, lonely silence, but he couldn’t. It must be awful. He began to see why Erik was so afraid.

“Of course, it’s pretty much thought of as a legend,” Ridley shook her head, “If you believe the rumour only the Lord Protector knows where it is.”

“No he doesn’t,” said Oscar.

“I must have known something about it, though,” said Maggs, “Anything in that book, Erik?”

“…condemned by the Three Wise Lords and incarcerated in the White Tower…” he read.

“Then he wasn’t put in the Bl… in that other place then?” asked Oscar.

“They wouldn’t dare put that in,” said Erik, “No one would buy the book.”

“But what if,” said Oscar, “The other place was inside the White Tower?”

“A hidden dungeon, you mean?” Ridley paused in her pacing, “Yes… No, wait, that can’t be right: Erik, when was Cowper put away?”

“…um… 1817…”

“But,” Oscar was confused, “The White Tower is a skyscraper - it’s not that old is it?”

“No, it isn’t, that’s what I’m getting at, it can’t be in that White Tower,” Ridley started pacing again.

“So there was a different White Tower in the old days?”

“Of course!” Ridley stopped and snapped her fingers, “Oscar, you’re a genius. There must have been! Maggs?”

“The original White Tower? The Tower of London, even I know that.”

“The Tower of London?”

“Yes! The White Tower is the name of the main Keep of the Tower of London - it was a jail in historical times, and not just for ordinary prisoners, either, but for magical ones, too - that’s why the White Tower is called that, after the original prison…”

“Then that’s where the Chamber must be: in the Tower of London!”

Ridley clapped her hands.

“Now, gnome, we need the fastest transport you have in the house!”

The moment they fell through the opening, the terrible sense of dread and fear that they had been pursuing fell away and as the door creaked shut behind them, they found themselves sitting on the floor of a small, dimly lit wood panelled room. Or was it small? It was hard to tell - it felt small but the light only seemed to illuminate the bit where they were sitting - to the right and left the room faded away, not quite in shadow more into a kind of indistinct mist so that was hard to tell just where it began and where it ended. When Oscar moved the noise of his trainers on the floorboards echoed oddly, like he was shuffling around in a huge steel drum, not in a cramped wooden room. It was a confusing sensation.

The furniture in the room was just as odd, because no matter what angle Oscar looked at it from, it gave the distinct impression of not being real furniture at all, but just pictures of furniture - flat pieces of cardboard that had just been painted look like bookshelves and green flock wallpaper, a cosy looking leather armchair and a small table.

The only real looking furniture that he could see was a large mirror hanging over the mantelpiece on the wall opposite and this made the whole thing even more confusing, because the reflection in the mirror looked so much more real than the furniture in the room - it looked actual and solid and friendly, even the reflections of the backs of the objects on the mantelpiece: a clock and a vase, a couple of Christmas cards. Oddly, one ornament didn’t seem to be reflected in the mirror at all and even more oddly that ornament was a garden gnome, with a green hat, red cheeks and a long white beard.

“Ridley? Look at this mirror: it’s really weird…”

“Oh dear.” Ridley picked herself up and started brushing off her uniform, “I’m afraid the mirror is quite normal, Oscar, it’s us who are weird: we’re on the wrong side of it. Welcome to the inside of the mirror.”

“Are you sure?” Said a sneery, gravelly sort of voice, “You don’t want to leap to any conclusions. Perhaps you should take time to,” it paused dramatically; “reflect upon your situation.” the voice sniggered unpleasantly.

Oscar looked around but he couldn’t see who was talking to them.

“Oh dear, look at them. Just shadows of their former selves,” said the voice. Then a new voice chimed in.

“That doesn’t work, you know, Alberecht: shadows. It doesn’t work. If we’d trapped them in a magical lamp, it might, perhaps…”

Oscar saw some movement out of the corner of his eye, something on the mantelpiece on the other side of the mirror.

“Shut up,” said the first voice, “I’m gloating. I’m having a lovely gloat.”

“At least give me a hand,” said the second voice, “I want to gloat, too.”

“What about ‘reflect’,” said a third voice, this one slower and more considered than the first two, “You could tell them to ‘reflect’ on their situation - that would work.”

“He’s done that one,” said the second voice, “It was after that that he ran out and started with the shadows.”

“Will you both Shut Up!” It was the sound of the petulant little foot stamping that finally allowed Oscar to place the voices, “I’ll push both of you off and then you’ll break and then you’ll be sorry.”

The first voice, Oscar realised, was coming from the garden gnome who had so incongruously been standing on the mantelpiece before. He had been stroking his moustaches while he had been gloating, but now he had two thick handfuls of beard that he was wrenching at fitfully as he shouted at his friends. The second voice was now standing next to him, peering through the glass at Oscar and Ridley. He had a yellow hat and no beard, just long moustaches that hung down nearly to his belt.

As Oscar watched, a third gnome hauled himself up onto the mantelpiece and then started pulling up the length of rope he must have climbed. It had a fishing rod at the other end of it. He turned round, winding the line back onto his reel. He had blue hat and eyebrows so bushy it was hard to believe that he could see where he was going.

“I was having a lovely gloat,” continued the first gnome, who must have been Alberecht, “And now you’ve ruined it.”

“It’s my turn anyway,” said the second gnome with the moustaches, “I want a go before,” and it was now his turn to pause, “they bounce back.”

“What?” Alberecht turned to stare at him.

“Before they bounce back,” he sounded less cheerful this time; less convinced that what he had just said was clever.

“Bounce back,” the sneer was back in Alberecht’s voice

“Yes, you know, I mean, that’s what mirrors do, isn’t it? They bounce light back to the eye, thus creating a reflection, isn’t it?” The second gnome shuffled and cleared his throat, “Isn’t it?”

“Thus…” said Alberecht, scornfully.

“It’s still better than shadows…” muttered the second gnome into his moustache.

“What are they?” whispered Oscar to Ridley.

“Gnomes, or Hobgoblins, possibly,” Ridley smiled ruefully, “I’m afraid these small creatures tend to get confused with each other a lot of the time.”

“We don’t get confused,” interjected the second gnome, “You do. We know perfectly well what we are.”

“We’re gnomes,” said Alberecht, “I mean, honestly, woman: hat, beard, fishing rod: what else would we be? Idiot.”

“All I meant,” said Ridley, “Is that gnomes usually help out in the garden, it’s more usually hobgoblins in the house.”

“Ah,” said the third gnome with a smug tone, “But there’s no garden here, is there?” They all nodded and seemed to think that that ended any further discussion.

“It is our job to guard her ladyship’s precious castle against intruders: you have intruded and we are guarding against you. Rather well, as it happens,” When Alberecht said the word: ‘ladyship’, the other gnomes whispered something and grinned to themselves stupidly.

“We made a trail,” said the second gnome, “So that you’d think it was your friend, so that you’d follow it, so that you’d get caught. So you’re idiots and we… are skill.”

Alberecht scowled, “Karl?”

“Yes?”

“Shut up.”

“But we’re not his friends,” protested Oscar, “The Erl King. We’re nothing to do with him.”

“Then why were you following him?” asked Alberecht.

“We were chasing him.”

“So you are something to do with him, then?”

“But he was here? Did you capture him like you’ve captured us?” asked Ridley, eagerly.

The gnomes shuffled a bit and carefully didn’t catch each other’s eyes.

“We had to let him go,” mumbled Alberecht into his beard.

“Too strong was he?”

“He was… a disruptive influence.” Alberecht was evidently pleased with having thought of the phrase.

“Listen,” interrupted Oscar, “This is Maggs’ house, isn’t it? That’s who we’re friends with: Maggs. Honestly. The Erl King was her enemy, so we were chasing him: we’re her friends, you see.”

“Anyone could say that,” said the third gnome.

“Prove it,” said Alberecht.

“If the Mistress would vouch for you, then we’d let you out,” said Karl.

“But she can’t,” said Oscar, “You don’t understand…”

“Listen,” said Ridley, “That man we were chasing: The Erl King - he and his Darklings attacked Maggs and she forgot her magic - she forgot all about you and this castle and everything…”

“And now she’s been captured by the Darklings and we’re trying to save her,” added Oscar, “So you see, she can’t vouch for us…”

“Only on the Mistress’ word,” said Alberecht, with an air of finality.

“Oh, this is useless,” Oscar’s shoulders sagged, “They’re never going to believe us.”

“What are you up to now?” said a voice, “What’s all this shouting? Stars and Moons! Oscar, Ridley, what are you doing in there?”

Oscar’s heart leapt at the sound, and so did the gnomes, jumping to attention and all turning to bow in unison, because there, on the other side of the mirror, was…

“Maggs!” shouted Oscar trying to jump up to see over the mantelpiece, “Maggs! Is that really you?”

“And is that really you?” Maggs was having to stand on tiptoe to see them herself, “What are you doing here?”

“We were following the Erl King,” Ridley lifted Oscar up to see properly.

“And it was he who brought… oh, this is ridiculous, gnomes, let them out, I can’t talk to them like this.”

Alberecht snapped to attention, “Erik, you heard the Mistress, stop just hanging about, let them out, Karl, you get the tea on, tsk: can’t you see we have guests?”

The breaking of the mirror was a fascinating thing to see, as Erik took out a tiny hammer and swung it against the glass, which shattered under the blow with a thousand little explosions like glass bells bursting, leaving behind a thin silver mist that hovered and swayed where the glass had been. But Oscar was too excited about the prospect of seeing Maggs again to fully take it in and he scrambled up onto the mantelpiece eagerly.

“Come along, then,” said Erik, sticking his face through the mist so that some of the silver frosted the tips of his luxurious eyebrows, “Before it freezes up again. I’m not breaking it all over again - once is bad luck enough for me.”

The mist felt cool and slippery as Oscar put his face through it and, for a brief moment, all he could see was his own reflection staring blankly back at him out of thousands of silver droplets suspended all around. Then he was through and sitting quite happily on the mantelpiece, looking down on the room he had seen through the mirror and there on the hearth rug waiting for him was Maggs.