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.

“You remember what I was telling you earlier about the Magi keeping secrets from each other?” They were standing on a windy hillside looking up at the dark building from the photograph. Even though it was surrounded by suburbs and University buildings there was something indescribably lonely about the hilltop. The grass was grey and sickly and what trees there were huddled close to ground in scrubby clumps and their lefless branches were festooned with ragged plastic bags.

The building squatted in the middle of all this like a large child’s toy that had been left in the garden to get mouldy and weather stained. Even in shape it was like a toy, a simplified sketch of a castle, lumpy and shapeless with four squat towers and worn down nubs of battlements. Oscar could see it wasn’t a real old castle, though - it was made of dark grey concrete and had a television aerial on the roof.

“I think this place might be one of those secrets.” Ridley walked away and peered round the corner of the building.

“I haven’t seen anything that looks like a door in, have you?”

“No,” Oscar admitted.

“I suspect the roof is probably the best bet,” she has walked back towards him and now held out her hand, “Here, take my hand.”

Oscar took hold of her hand and immediately felt himself being pulled upwards. Ridley seemed to be stepping up through the air, as if she was on some kind of invisible escalator, climbing non-existant steps but rising faster than she was stepping. Oscar found himself being pulled easily up behind her, rising up towards the top of the tower. As they drew level with the top, Oscar could see that the roof was flat and largely featureless, apart from a couple of large puddles and some odd little bumps and hollows.

Ridley stepped down onto the roof and neatly swung Oscar down after her. To Oscar’s surprise he heard a small thump and found the black cat winding itself around his legs again. He was sure that Ridley hadn’t carried it up with her, but had it just jumped all the way up here on its own?

Ridley was already pacing about the empty expanse of roof, stopping here and there to examine any odd bulges or dips. The cat set off after her, sniffing at her tracks. Oscar followed.

“It’s more of a tradition really, these days,” Ridley was saying, “But everyone does it. Even I’ve got a little garret no one knows about. It comes from the old days, before the Royal Order, when Magi kept their methods and knowledge secret - and key to keeping those things secret was keeping where you kept them secret, if you see what I mean - your laboratory, your house, your… tower. Every Magi has one - a secret tower - a place that no one else knows about, where they can come and work without being disturbed. And I suspect that this here ‘mysterious castle’ is, in fact, Maggs’ tower.”

“You mean Maggs used to live here?”

“I mean I think she probably still does, technically, it’s just that, like everything else, she’s forgotten it. But someone knows now - Hopkins must have worked out that Maggs came from York and he… they, I suppose, him and the Erl King, must have discovered that the family were…” She suddenly stopped and looked up at Oscar, “You have to know, I’m afraid, you ought to… the people in that house, they were a family, I think… I think they were Maggs’ family… you see… he killed them, Oscar, the Erl King, your… your Uncle… he killed everyone in that house. I’m sorry.”

Ridley stood, looking at him, her hands hanging by her sides, her face sad and lost. Oscar didn’t know what to think. He couldn’t quite figure it out, put it together. He tried to remember his Uncle’s face in the Great Hall, when he had tried to stop Cuddy and even later when they had unmasked him. He tried to see there the face of a madman and a murderer, but somehow he couldn’t. The face of his Uncle Rufus kept getting in the way. He just couldn’t, literally couldn’t - was not able to - believe it. The black cat wound itself round his ankles in a reassuring manner. Unable to think of anything else he could do, he walked up and took Ridley’s hand.

“We better stop him, then, shouldn’t we?”

She looked down at him, solemnly, “Yes, yes we should. Here - I think there might be something here.”

She bent down where she had been standing and tugged at a piece of pipe sticking out from the plain grey of the roof. To Oscar’s amazement a line appeared in the asphalt, then three, making three sides of a wide square. Then the side Ridley was pulling lifted up and he saw that it was a trapdoor. Ridley swung it all the way up and flung it back so that the dark entrance gaped open before them. They peered down into the shadows. Oscar could just about make out some stairs leading down out of sight. It was far darker in there than it ought to be.

“Why wasn’t it locked?” he asked.

“Magi don’t need locks,” said Ridley, grinning, “Their belongings have ways of protecting themselves. Ready?” And without waiting for an answer she stepped down into the darkness.

Inside, the steps led down into shadow. The light from the trapdoor faded far quicker than seemed normal, but Oscar realised that it was not completely dark. The walls were panelled with solid, dark wood but dotted all over them and the ceiling were small points of bluish light, each one of which was far too faint to make any difference on its own, but all together they spread a sort of dim twilight, letting them at least vaguely make out where they were going. When he looked at the lights more closely Oscar discovered that they were little bugs, something like bumblebees, crawling slowly over the walls, their bodies glowing feebly. Every so often one of them would take off and float gently and aimlessly through the air around them. The corridor was full of these wandering sparks. It was a magical place, something like waking through a teeming galaxy full of tiny dim stars, as confusing as it was illuminating. The cat seemed to find them extremely entertaining.

“Emberbees,” said Ridley, who didn’t seem quite as impressed with them as Oscar, “Not the most efficient lighting system. Wait.”

She held up her hand and stopped, cocking her head to listen. Oscar stood quite still in the deathly silence, straining to listen. His attention was caught by a picture on the wall. It was a drawing of a view of York Minster, but he could just make out, in the background, an immensely tall man leaning against a buttress with his arms folded. Oscar got the definite impression that the man was glowering out the picture right at him. Oscar jumped. From somewhere far below came the distinct sound of something being knocked over and glass smashing.

“Someone else is in here,” said Ridley, “Either that or some of the furniture isn’t too pleased to have visitors. Come on.”

Ridley snatched out her hand and grabbed an Emberbee out of the air. She passed her black rod over her closed fist, muttering something under her breath. The light leaking out from between her fingers grew stronger and warmer. She opened her hand and a fierce orange glow staggered out. It shook itself and then started off down the corridor in front of them, much brighter than before. Ridley, Oscar and the cat followed at a jog.

They trotted down the corridor to a junction. Ridley listened for a moment and then turned left. After a few moments the corridor turned right and then right again, so they were now going in exactly the opposite direction. They came to another junction. Ridley chose carefully again. The corridor seemed to go on forever - there were no doors or windows, just endless panelled corridor, lined with pictures, turning and meeting, back and forth in the shadowy, drifting dark, round and around in a bewildering maze. Ridley stopped suddenly and Oscar ran into her. This part of corridor seemed dimmer than the others - there were fewer Emberbees here.

“It’s trying to lose us, confuse us…”

“It’s working,” said Oscar. Then, suddenly, he jumped as a sharp knife of fear thrilled through him, drilling him to the spot. Ridley reached over and grabbed his arm.

“It’s him!” she hissed, “Isn’t it? It’s the Erl King!”

Oscar nodded, dumbly, suddenly feeling sick as that now familiar sense of dread that accompanied the Erl King everywhere became to seep over him. All around them the Emberbees were starting to go out and the shadows were creeping in, but Ridley ran on, heedless of the gathering darkness, and Oscar scrambled after her, suddenly panicking that she would leave him alone here in the darkness. But the little black cat came scampering up between his legs, turning to look at him as she passed, her eyes flashing in the darkness, beckoning him on.

They chased helter-skelter through the endlessly dividing corridors. It was a confusing pursuit - impossible to keep track of. Blundering through the shadows with Emberbees swirling around them, unable to concentrate because of the fear that the Erl King spread in his wake, they ran down the endless wood panelled corridors after the cat, barely aware of where they were going and what they were doing.

Suddenly Ridley pulled up sharply, but this time Oscar didn’t run into her. He had stopped in his tracks, too, frozen there by a sudden wave of panic - they were lost! They had come too far, run down into the heart of the tower and now they would never escape: it would wind its labyrinth around them, tightening its grip like a spider wrapping up its prey. They would wander forever in these dim, sparking passageways, first going mad and then fading away entirely, becoming nothing more than anxious whispers in the darkness, forever searching, never finding, eternally lost in Maggs’ castle…

Of course: Maggs! She had been behind all this, right from the beginning! She had tricked Oscar into following her, she had spurred on Thursby and Cuddy, humiliated first Ridley and then Skelton… it all made sense now. She must have faked her loss of powers, she must have been planning this all for years and years, moving all her pieces into place, master minding this great coup to finally put herself in power and crush her enemies: It was Maggs! She was the evil genius, she was the mysterious power behind it all, she was the Erl King, she was… nothing of the kind!

What on Earth was going on? How could he be thinking such things about Maggs? It was ridiculous! Oscar reached out and grabbed hold of Ridley as she stumbled along through the darkness ahead of him.

“Ridley, wait, something’s up… I’ve been thinking… mad things… about Maggs”

“It’s… it’s the Erl King… the fear…”

“No, no, you don’t understand - it’s different… this is different to before - that was other things… things I was already afraid of… this is… this is made up stuff…”

“You’re getting confused… it’s getting stronger… we’ve almost got him…”

“What if something’s got us?”

“Here!”

Before Oscar could stop her, Ridley threw herself sideways against the wall. As she hit it, a section of the panels swung away in front of her and she plunged through into the darkness beyond. Her flailing arms caught Oscar and he tripped after her, falling into the shadows.

As the Dragon pulled into York Station, huffing and growling, cross at being made to stop, Oscar was surprised to see that the station was almost completely empty. The only people he could see were a few nervous looking railway officials, watching them arrive from a high window, and a small knot of policemen standing by the main entrance.

As they got down from the train one of the police officers moved towards them.

“Glad you’re here,” he said and shook Ridley by the hand. He shot Oscar a disapproving glance but said nothing, “Don’t know how you knew, but I won’t ask what I don’t want to hear. This way…” and he waved them in the direction of the doors that other officers were now holding open for them.

Ridley glanced at Oscar with a confused expression on her face, but said nothing. The two of them got into a waiting car and soon they were racing through the twisting streets with the sirens wailing.

Like London, York seemed to have become a ghost city; the streets empty but for forlorn looking Christmas decorations, that swung, unlit, in the wind. The ancient buildings, sagging over the road with age, seemed abandoned, but, as they passed, Oscar saw curtains twitch and frightened faces peer out at them.

The car made its way out of the city and into more suburban streets. Ridley scrabbled in her pocket and pulled out the map from the White Tower. She turned it round a couple of times and squinted out of the window at the passing road names.

“Well, we definitely seem to be going in the right direction,” she said.

“But they seemed to be expecting us,” said Oscar, “What’s going on?”

“I’m not sure,” whispered Ridley, “But they seem to be impressed with us, so lets not disillusion them, eh?” and she winked conspiratorially.

The sirens stopped wailing and the car pulled up in front of an ugly suburban building that was actually two houses pushed clumsily together with an archway in the middle. The archway was currently full of police cars. The driver leaned back over the seats.

“Its the house on the left - there should be an officer on door, he’ll tell you what’s what…” he nodded towards Oscar and lowered his voice a little, “Are you sure you should be taking the boy?”

“He’ll be fine,” said Ridley and ushered Oscar out of the car.

The policeman on the door didn’t seem at all sure what was what and had to disappear inside several times to confer with his radio and the officers in the house, and sometimes both, before he would let Ridley and Oscar in.

They were met in the hall by an officer in plain clothes, who took Ridley aside and spoke to her in whispers. She turned to look at Oscar and he saw that her expression had become incredibly serious.

“Oscar,” she said, “I want you to have a look on this floor, see what you can see. I’m going to look on the first floor…” and she followed the plain-clothes officer up the stairs.

Despite all the whispering and secrecy, Oscar already had an unpleasant sensation in his stomach that made him think that he was quite happy staying down here, where there were plenty of policemen. He had a horrible suspicion that something nasty had happened upstairs, something that he wasn’t interested in seeing right now. And given that the police didn’t seem all that surprised to see him and Ridley made him suspect that the Erl King might be on exactly the same trail as they were.

He wandered through a kitchen into a sitting room, the cat following quietly at his heels. Policemen, some in uniform, and some in strange, rustling white boiler suits moved about around him. He could tell that they were looking at him but were either too busy working or too wary of these new inexplicable events to actually ask what a small boy was doing there.

He looked around - it seemed like a perfectly ordinary sitting room - a TV in one corner, a big sofa and a couple of armchairs, a coffee table, a mantelpiece with some pictures on it… Oscar looked at the photographs more closely. He walked up towards the mantelpiece, with the odd sensation that he wanted to try and keep what he had discovered secret, even though it wouldn’t mean anything to anyone else in the room. He looked around, but no one seemed to be paying at direct attention to him. He gingerly picked up one of the photographs.

“Oscar!”

Oscar jumped and turned and dropped the photograph. All the policemen in the room turned and stared at the sound of the breaking glass. Ridley stepped over to him from the door.

“He’s been here. The Erl King.” She looked drawn. Her lips were thin as though she had decided something. For a moment she was far away but then she suddenly looked down at him and put her hand on his shoulder. “We better get you out of here…”

“I know why.” Oscar bent to pick up the photo. The black cat was standing by it, watching him carefully.

“Come on - leave that - you’ll cut yourself on the glass - the police will clear it up.”

“No, I know why, why he came here - see?” Oscar lifted the photo frame up and glass fell out at his feet. The cat edged away from the falling shards. Ridley reached down and took it from him.

“Give that to me.”

“Look at it, though…”

Ridley was going to put it back on the mantelpiece but then she stopped. She turned it into the light coming through the French windows.

“My goodness…”

The photograph was of a young couple with a baby. They were standing on a hillside with another, slightly older woman. The three adults were smiling at the camera, although the baby didn’t seem all that pleased to be outside. Behind them, at the top of the hill, was a squat, black building, like some kind of castle. The older woman, standing beside the couple, was unquestionably, younger but unmistakeable, Maggs.

“Officer!” Ridley was carefully picking the picture out of the frame, flicking away little crumbs of glass. A policeman approached, warily.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“This building - in the background here - do you know what it is?”

“That, ma’am? That’s just over the top of the hill here - in the University grounds… I not entirely sure what it is, some kind of water tower, I think.”

“I thought it was some kind of substation - you know, for the electricity,” said a policeman behind them.

“It’s one of the University departments, isn’t it?” said another.

“It’s a funny thing,” said the first, “But I’ve never noticed it on any maps…”

There was a small smile on Ridley’s face. She put the photograph in her inside jacket pocket.

“Can someone drive us there, please?”

There seemed to be more policemen at St Pancras than there were passengers. The station was almost completely empty apart from the armed officers walking carefully to and fro across the concourse and in their wake the lonely travellers clustered anxiously round their bags. People spoke in whispers and seemed lost and insignificant in great, solemn space of the station.

Ridley ushered Oscar along towards the farther side of the station, past queues that were forming at the head of every platform, as people waited to have their bags searched by stern policemen. Already Oscar could see Magi, in a green uniform that he couldn’t recognise, moving down the queues, scrutinising the passengers as they passed by.

Their own destination, however, was obscured by a great billowing cloud of smoke and steam. Oscar wondered if something somewhere was on fire - black smuts started to dot his clothes and the smell of burning stung his nose as Ridley led him down the platform.

Through the thick steam he caught glimpses of colourful and ornately decorated carriages, covered all over with lots of gleaming brass fixings and delicate and mysterious patterns. All the windows were decorated too, with magical symbols cut into the glass and many of them were closed by thick green velvet curtains. Through the few that were open he could just about make out an interior full of more green velvet and gold braid.

It wasn’t a long train - only three or four carriages long - and soon the steam began to thin and Oscar could see they were approaching the engine. It was completely unlike any train engine he had ever seen, outside of old films and books. It was black and gleaming and a number of Magi in overalls that would have been practical apart from the magical patterns embroidered on them, wandered back and forth polishing and tending the machinery. Only was it machinery? Peering through the wreathing smoke, the pipes began to look like tentacles or whiskers, the metal started to look like it was made up of many iridescent scales, the whole tender seemed to swell and fall as if it were… breathing…

And then, as they approached closer, the whole of the front of the engine rose up and turned towards them: a great, bearded, shiny face, with a short, blunt muzzle, a hint of huge white teeth and two dimly glowing red eyes like warning lights. It wasn’t a steam engine at all: it was a dragon.

Oscar stood, rooted to the spot, as the Engine Dragon shook his enormous, heavy head at them and snorted steam out through nostrils like gleaming funnels. Ridley reached up and patted the Dragon’s hissing muzzle and it nudged her back with evident affection. The black cat came sauntering down the platform and sat down next the Ridley, regarding the dragon with a curiously superior expression. One of the Magi in overalls came up to them, wiping his hands on a piece of cloth and looking very pleased with himself.

“Took all six of us to conjure her back up - took five of us just to find which shed she’d been left in…” he patted the Dragon and then wiped where his hand had been.

“Its good to see her again, isn’t it girl?” Ridley scratched the Engine under the chin with her staff - it sounded like someone running a stick along a piece of corrugated iron, “Are we ready to go?”

“She’s fed and we’ve got a full head of steam up,” said the Magi Engineer, “The first full run of the Great Northern in twenty years: it’s going to be quite something.”

“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go…” Ridley turned and started back towards the carriages.

“Right then,” said the Engineer and, with a great grin plastered on his face, he took a whistle from his pocket and blew it: “All aboard!”

Oscar sprinted after Ridley and followed her and the cat up the steps into the first carriage as all the Engineers ran up towards their special cabin just behind the Engine Dragon. Then Chief Engineer blew his whistle again and, with a great bellow and a rush of steam the Dragon sprang forward down the lines, catapulting Oscar through the door into the soft green seats of the compartment, as they leapt forward, out of the station, and away in a whirlwind of smoke and sparks and magic, away through the tunnels and between the houses, away up the lines to York.

Oscar sat back in his seat, watching the countryside rush past, as they sped up the line north. Ridley sat opposite him, on the other side of a table stacked high with tea things, including, Oscar had been pleased to discover, a large number of cakes that Ridley didn’t seem to want. There had to be some kind of spell cast on the carriage, because in here it was incredibly hard to tell that they were travelling at all, but even when the carriage did occasionally shake and rattle, the tea things were all very careful to brace themselves and make sure that nothing spilt. They weren’t being helped, though, by the black cat, who was amusing herself by chasing a particularly nervous saltcellar around the table.

“Told you it would be worth going by train, didn’t I?” said Ridley, grinning, “Only way to travel. I never thought I’d see any of the great Engine Dragons running again in my lifetime, let alone be able to commission one for my own business in broad daylight… amazing, quite amazing… You know,” She leant forward, “When I was your age they only ran them at night - and that was only in emergencies - the only time I ever got to ride in one before today was the night the Wild Ride attacked our college. That was pretty much the last time before they put them away for good.”

“This is what I don’t understand,” said Oscar, who was now full of cake and able to concentrate on less important matters, “The Magi have been around for ages, right? And I know everyone was hiding from the Erl King, but Uncle Rufus isn’t that old - I mean, you just said that there were even Dragons before then - I mean, how come no one knows about you? Someone must have noticed something…”

“Oh they did - lots of people have known or suspected, at different times - after all, Isaac Newton set up the original Brotherhood with the permission of the King - so he must have known - but the Magi have always liked to keep things secret, even from each other. It takes a lot of research and skill and training to summon spirits, you know - and before the Brotherhood was founded it was even more difficult than it is now - back then Magi were always scared of someone else finding out their tricks and stealing their spirits, so they kept everything secret and, well, old habits die hard, I suppose…”

“Maggs said something about Newton: but I still don’t really understand what he did.”

“I’m afraid that’s another one of the mysteries of the Magi, really: you see, Newton and the other founders of the Brotherhood created the Great Work, the spell that created the modern Royal Order, but how they did it was kept secret and today is lost completely…

“But I’m getting a little ahead of myself - I take it you know the story of Merlin?”

“The wizard? With King Arthur and the knights and dragons and everything?”

“Well, there weren’t really knights back then, but there were dragons, of course…” Ridley paused for a moment and looked at him, “Perhaps I’ll refresh your memory anyway…

“A long time ago, after the Romans had left Britain, but long before the Normans came, and far away to the West, there was a King called Vortigern. Vortigern was trying to build a castle to protect himself from his enemies, but each time he got it halfway built, the earth would shake and the Castle would collapse back down into a huge cloud of dust and a little pile of rubble. Then Vortigern would have the architects whipped and start all over again.

“After several tries, though, the architects were starting to get a little fed up at this arrangement, and Vortigern wasn’t too pleased, either, so he called together all the wise men and asked them what he should do to keep his Castle up. And they told him that he had to sacrifice a child with no father at the base of the tower and only then would it stay in one piece. Now, obviously, children without any kind of human father at all aren’t in plentiful supply, but fortunately for Vortigern there was one, a boy called Merlin, whose father was said to be the Devil, or perhaps a faerie, but certainly not a normal man. So Vortigern had Merlin brought to him and prepared to sacrifice him.

“Merlin, however, was not overjoyed at being killed just to keep a Castle up, and told Vortigern that his wise men were wrong, and what he had to do was dig a deep pit beneath where the castle stood. Well, Vortigern dug the pit and at the bottom they discovered a Red Dragon and a White Dragon, locked in fierce combat, and it was their buffetings and crashings that was making the ground shake and destroying the Castle…

“Now, obviously that’s just a story, and it has a more complicated ending and might mean all kinds of complicated things, but what Newton discovered was that it held a grain of truth - there are two dragons: the two most powerful spirits in Britain, spirits so powerful and so ancient that no Magi would dare even trying to capture them with magic. They simply wouldn’t know how.

“But what Newton also discovered was that there was a way to do it. The ancients had built monuments - standing stones, barrow mounds, that sort of thing - that helped them channel and use the powers of the greater spirits, but in the thousands of years since the skills had been forgotten and the new cities and castles and houses had ruined the spell.

“So Newton set about working it all out, just as he did with Mathematics and Physics, and eventually he was ready to perform ‘The Great Work’. With the help of other Magi - including a famous architect called Hawksmoor - he had constructed a system of buildings that worked as a spell, binding one of the Great Spirits: the White Dragon, placing it in the power of the Magi.

“And that Great Work became the keystone of the Brotherhood of the Magi: ensorcelling the White Dragon changed Magic forever - it put great power into the hands of the Brotherhood, power that was shared with every Magi that joined. What had been a little London club became the official body of Magic in Britain. And that power made the practise of magic easier - many other spirits bowed before the White Dragon - it meant that instead of all the research and experimentation, to command a spirit you just needed to know the right words of command:” and here she said something in a language that Oscar could almost, but not quite, understand, “and they obey you…”

As she spoke the cake stand waddled uncertainly towards Oscar and then shuffled round until the last two remaining cakes were facing him. He took one and it bowed graciously and then sidled back to its place by the teapot.

“So… I… I could do magic if I wanted?” asked Oscar.

“You’re already making crumbs appear from nowhere,” said Ridley, “Seriously though, yes, you could, you could and you will… I promise. Once all this is over…”

“You and Maggs? You’ll teach me?”

“I’d be honoured.”

And Oscar sat back, visions of whole armies of cake stands at his beck and call filling his head as he gazed rapturously out of the window and, before he knew, fell fast asleep.

Dropping right into the middle of a group of policemen, who, as one, drew guns and took aim at the pair of them. Ridley barely had time to react to this when the door to 10 Downing Street opened and Murray stumped out on his crutch, with a tight knot of more policemen and Magi behind him.

“Ah, there you are,” he grunted and then added, as an afterthought, “My Lord. They’re with us,” and he waved his crutch at the policemen surrounding them.

The scrum of police and Magi - many of whom, Oscar now noticed, were wearing a green uniform he didn’t recognise, which had silver emblems of the Knight Errant lance on the collars - parted as a fleet of limousines drew up and formed a defensive corridor between the cars and the front door, and it was somewhere in this confusion and flurry of barked orders that Oscar found himself shaking hands with the Prime Minister.

“I understand I have you to thank for my life, my boy,” the Prime Minister pumped his hand up and down and clapped him on the shoulder, “There’ll be an official statement, of course, but I can only say thank you and, well, good work.”

The effect of the honour was almost ruined a moment later when a General ruffled his hair and called him a ‘clever little fellow’, but Oscar couldn’t help grinning like an idiot as the politicians crammed past into the cars.

Cuddy came bustling up, looking very pleased himself.

“Going to the Palace,” he said, trying to make it sound as if it was something he did regularly, “Lots to do… good work you two, by the way, very nicely handled - looked very good that, Marion, springing into action like that, impressed the PM, I could tell.

“And we’re going to need more of that sort of thing - we’re public now and we have to use it, understand? We have to take up our responsibilities - the Knights Errant are going to be taking charge of the defence against the Wild Ride, but we need more than that: we need results, we need the Erl King - that’s your job now Oscar, and yours, Ridley: don’t let me down.”

And then he was gone, disappearing into a knot of policemen to be bundled into car with the Home Secretary and a very confused looking Admiral.

The cars had pulled away in a flurry of activity, pulling, in their wake, squads of Knights Errant and policemen off on desperate errands and vital missions, until Downing Street was suddenly quiet and almost empty.

Ridley and Oscar walked down towards Whitehall. Already the whole area was sealed off by policemen, but now, in the distance, Oscar could see Spirits taking up their part: statues stumping down from their plinths to take up guard positions in road junctions, Wyverns flapping blackly down to perch on streetlamps, Knight Mares clattering off to herd traffic away. And slowly the stillness of these streets was spreading out across the city as roads were closed, shops were shut, offices emptied, as the terror of the Erl King blanketed the whole of London in a quaking silence.

“So,” said Ridley, “We have our orders, then, my Lord, the trouble being, where do we start?”

“Well,” said Oscar, “I’ve been thinking about this, a bit. I’ve been thinking about Hopkins.”

“Hopkins?” Ridley was surprised, “Who on earth is Hopkins?”

“He’s man in the White Tower. I saw him in there.”

“Oh,” Ridley went quiet, “That Hopkins.”

“I know, but listen, when we were getting everyone out of the Tower he wanted to see Maggs, to tell her something, but then he wouldn’t say what it was and refused to leave the Tower.”

“So? He was mad before he went in there, if you believe the stories, he’s probably a fair bit madder now.”

“No, well, yes, but I was thinking about what the thing, the mask, said in the Museum, something about, being held prisoner in fear, you know, and it made think of the White Tower and made think of Hopkins and what he might know about Maggs.”

“And what he might know,” the light was dawning on Ridley’s face, “About the Darklings…”

They were standing the courtyard of Hopkins’ castle, but it had changed almost out of all recognition since the last time Oscar had been there. This time there were no sign of servants or soldiers, except for something in a corner that Oscar was rather afraid might be a body. There were gaping holes in the walls and miles of broken masonry all around. The courtyards was covered in piles of rubbish and discarded, broken weapons. Here and there were smouldering heaps of wood and cloth. Black and grey smoke drifted over the scene. Somewhere far away they could hear shouting and screaming and the clash of war. The ground trembled under their feet with the distant rumble of explosions.

“It wasn’t like this last time we were here,” said Oscar, “They were all parading and everything and there were walls…”

“I don’t know what’s going on,” said Ridley, “But I think we ought to get out of it - which way was it?”

They found the library, eventually, and in it they found the servant who had shown them there the last time they had visited; only this time he was hiding under a table. Ridley hauled him out and sat him down.

“What’s going on here?”

“The rebels… they attacked…”

“That’s it!” it was coming back to Oscar, “He said something about being crowned every morning and then starting a revolution every afternoon…”

“Starting a revolution? Against himself?” Ridley was confused.

“Oh, there’s always a revolution - every day,” said the servant, “Then his ineffableness puts it down and we crown him again. But this time he didn’t. It didn’t stop - they’re still fighting - so I came and hid in here. They never come in here - not ever…”

“You mean Hopkins didn’t beat his own rebellion? Hopkins is winning? I mean, Hopkins the rebel,” Ridley was starting to confuse herself

“Oh no, ma’am, no one is winning,” said the servant blithely, “Because his unbelievableness has gone, so no one’s in charge - they’re just fighting because they don’t know what else to do.”

“Hopkins has gone?”

“His Wondrousness has gone into shadow, my lady - they’ve been rebelling since then.”

“Gone into shadow? You mean the Wild Ride?”

“A darkness came and His Marvellousness went with it,” said the servant. He sounded like he wasn’t quite sure what had happened.

“Sounds like Erl King beat us to it,” said Ridley.

“They said before that he was in league with the Darklings, perhaps he’s helping them somehow.”

“My word, if he is, I think I know how, and I think I now know why the rebels never attack the library,” Ridley was looking at the bookshelves, “Look at this: Newton’s Principia Magica, Hawksmoor’s Commonplace Book, Dashwood’s Hellfire Diaries… this has got to be one of the most complete libraries of magical books I’ve ever seen…”

“I don’t understand,” Oscar was trying to extract a copy of Seven Spells of Seven Effective Magicians, which he thought sounded useful, “I mean, isn’t this prison? How could he get all these books in here?”

“Circles and moons!” Ridley clapped her hands, “That’s it, that’s why he wouldn’t leave - this is what was keeping him here - this is what the White Tower gave him - a library any Magi was dream of - every spell book ever written, even the lost ones, the ancient ones, all under one roof! He beat the White Tower! Man’s a genius…”

“I think he’s batty - rebelling against himself everyday.”

“So he’s spent his time in here researching into magic…”

“And rebelling against himself…”

“And rebelling against himself… what more could the Erl King want? The question is what do they want with Maggs?”

“The terrible work the King hath wrought shall by the King’s own hand be brought to naught.”

Ridley whirled round: “What did you just say, Oscar?”

“It’s something Maggs said - and it’s written down here,” Oscar was bending over a desk, looking at some notes that had been left lying on it. He read it out again: “‘The terrible work the King hath wrought, by the King’s own hand shall be brought to naught.’ What does it mean?”

Ridley moved to look over his shoulder.

“I’ve heard her say it myself - she always said it was the only thing she could remember from before the Wild Ride attacked her…. Stars and Spirits!” Ridley slapped her hand over her mouth, “That’s Maggs’ handwriting, I’m sure of it - these must be her notes! What else is there?”

Oscar riffled through the pages on the desk: they were all covered in strange spidery symbols and diagrams - then something recognisable jumped put at him:

“Look, a map!”

“Let me see…” Ridley laid it flat on the table between them, “…looks like a city…”

“Ork… I’ve never heard of that… is it a magical place?”

“I think that’s just the end of the name… York, perhaps? Yes, I think it is - what’s that there?”

“Looks like someone’s scribbled on it… I can’t read it though…”

“No it’s in Enochian, a magical language, but it’s in code, too, I can’t make it out… I do know one thing, though…”

“What’s that?”

“I have looked into your future, my Lord, and I foresee a long journey by train…”

“Well, John, it’s a lovely day for this group of children, as they assemble here in Downing Street, and it’ll be a lovely day for the Prime Minister, too. It’s been a difficult week in Westminster, this week, and I’m sure he’ll be glad to be dealing with schoolchildren rather than his cabinet for at least one afternoon. And here he is, with his wife and one of his own children, coming out of Number 10 now, waving the cameras as he comes to greet these children, winners of a Blue Peter competition. And who knows, perhaps some of them might be able to help him with his current troubles - all of them won their place here by suggesting new policies for children - and that’s just the sort of headline grabbing policies that the Prime Minister needs right now to distract his political opponents from…

“Hang on, wait a moment - there’s some kind of commotion in the crowd waiting and watching at the end of Downing Street - I think its some kind of demonstration - there’s some shouting - the police are moving in - there appear to be a group of people, all in some kind of uniform, pushing their through the crowd - and Special Branch are trying to get the Prime Minister back inside Number 10 - the police are trying to restrain the crowd - some of them are trying to move the children - its rapidly descending into chaos here in Downing Street… Oh my god! What’s that?…”

All at once everybody stopped shoving and shouting - a shiver ran through the crowd and they all instinctively drew back, huddling together, even before most of them had seen the long dark shape dropping from the rooftops above. One of the policemen fired his gun as the thing dropped and everyone in the crowd ducked and then stayed there, crouched down, hardly daring to look at the shapeless mound of clothing now that had fallen into the road.

Then, slowly, it began to rise, taller and taller, stretching up out of the pool of its blood red coat tails, its bone white head swinging this way and that, its long, thin fingers twitching, searching for a scent. The Erl King had come to Downing Street.

Someone in the crowd began to scream and the policeman with the gun began to fire wildly as the Erl King swept round to face him. Galvanised by the firing the crowd began to panic, everyone suddenly blundering about, still bent double, running into each other, the walls, out into the street, driven senseless by the fear the Erl King brought with him. Out in the road two police horses bucked and reared, their hooves flailing over the heads of the scurrying people.

The gun didn’t seem to worry the Erl King at all. He swayed for a moment and then darted forward, barely seeming to move at all, snatched up the policeman and flung him across the street into the abandoned cameras of the press. The moment the shooting stopped the crowd froze once more and a sudden silence descended. Someone somewhere was whimpering in a high, terrified voice.

The Erl King paused once more and then swung round slowly to face the Prime Minister, who was standing in front of the door to Number 10, surrounded by the children visiting him, desperately trying, ineffectually, to shelter them. A single long, white talon bent out to point at him and the thin, hunched figure tensed, as if about to leap…

“Stop, in the name of the Royal Order of Magi - You are under arrest!”

The Erl King swung back towards the gates as Ridley soared up over them, her black staff pointing straight down at him. Behind her the gates began to buckle and stretch, the metal bending to make a doorway through which more Magi poured. The Erl King turned and crouched as Ridley sailed over his head, coming back down to earth in front of the Prime Minister and the children. He seemed to be about to leap at her but as more Watchmen gathered around him, leaping up to occupy window ledges and rooftops, trying to cut off his means of escape, he shrank back even further, indecisive.

There was a grinding noise from out in the street, following by a metallic clattering and shrieks from the crowd as a bronze statue of someone on horseback leapt down from its podium and came ringing and sparking up towards the gate. Behind it came more statues - generals and prime ministers - waddling on their stiff metal legs: Winston Churchill clanging like a great bell as he came, his raised arms creaking into life.

The Erl King tensed and leapt and Ridley leapt too - but he was too fast. He twisted in the air and then there were two Erl Kings and then three, four - dark figures ricocheting across the narrow confines of Downing Street, bouncing from wall to wall. The Magi tried to catch them, but they were too fast, too numerous. And then one of them reached the rooftops and exploded into a flurry of black, rasping crows, and the air was full of beating wings and shining feathers and somewhere in the confusion a thin, scarlet figure fled across the rooftops and away.

Ridley dropped back down again, landing next to Oscar.

“Murray, stay here, try and get this mess in order - the rest of you, follow me - we can’t let him escape this time!” Then she turned and slipped an arm round Oscar’s waist, lifting him up, “And you, you are my good luck charm, come on!”

She turned back through the gates to Downing Street, to where the police horses had been; only now they weren’t police horses at all. For one thing they were still rearing up on their hind legs and their hides had turned a deep purple colour, but something about their legs had changed, their back legs had become thicker, stronger, so that they could happily walk on just the two of them, while the hooves on their front legs had divided up into thick, simple fingers that clacked together loudly as they moved. And they had sprouted horns from their heads, great, thick, spiralling horns which twitched and turned, swivelling round as their heads turned back and forth.

Ridley grabbed hold of the reins of one of them with her free hand, put a foot in a stirrup and swing them easily up into the saddle.

“Yales,” she explained, simply, “The traditional mount of the Knights Watchmen - Knight Mares, they used to call them…”

And with a flick of the reins, she swung the Yale about and they set off up Whitehall at a clattering lope.

It was not the most comfortable journey Oscar had ever endured. The saddle had changed shape along with the horse, but it didn’t help with the Yale’s strange, off kilter run that felt like they were constantly in danger of tipping over. But, on the other hand, galloping through the centre of London on a mythical animal is just about fun enough to make up for any discomfort.

Ahead of them a thick flock of squawking black birds wheeled and scrabbled over the roofs of the buildings, diving between streets and across open spaces. They jinked and turned in hot pursuit, the Yale swerving between buses and then leaping over the bonnet of a car in one heart-stopping rush.

They came rattling over Trafalgar square, splashing through the fountains, scattering tourists and pigeons as the sound of police sirens grew around them, then they turned sharply after the birds up a side street.

They cantered up the street, as Oscar and Ridley scanned the skies for the birds.

“There!” Oscar spotted them, flocking round a church spire in the distance.

Ridley urged the Yale on, up past Leicester Square, where the police cars were already gathering, sealing off streets, ushering people off the pavements.

They flashed past Chinatown, Oscar getting a glimpse of mouths full of food in restaurant windows, hanging open in amazement as they went past, and then they were at the church they had seen ahead of them, plunging into thick maze of smaller streets.

The flock of birds was getting thinner now, losing its numbers, getting harder to follow. Ridley turned into a wider road and then turned again, trying to catch their track.

They came out into a leafy square that had a small park in the middle of it. People scrambled out of their way as they came trotting in, jostling each other to get out of the park, while two policemen fought against the flow, trying to get in. In the commotion two or three ravens, all that was left of the flock of birds, flapped noisily up from the grass onto the roof of an odd little black and white building in the centre of the park.

“Lost him!” Ridley wheeled the Yale round, looking for something that might help them pick up the trail again.

They were alone in the park with the policemen, who, now they were finally in, looked like they wanted to get back out again and who backed away nervously as Ridley trotted up towards them, staring at the Yale’s horns in fear.

“Did you see him?” barked Ridley. The policemen stared back at her, open mouthed.

“The Erl King,” added Oscar helpfully. The policemen now stared at him, no wiser.

“The terrorist,” said Ridley. The word seemed to wake them up.

“Clear the streets,” said one of them.

“Fugitive on the loose,” added the other, as if glad to be saying something that sounded like it made sense, “Armed and dangerous.”

“Do not approach,” added the first one with a kind of satisfied finality.

“Absolutely,” said Ridley, “I think that would be a very good idea,” and she turned the Yale away from them, back across the park.

“Do you think he was deliberately trying to confuse us?” asked Oscar.

“Almost certainly,” said Ridley, grimly, “There’ll be Magi scattered all over London now…”

“But someone’s bound to find him, then.”

“Unless…” Ridley suddenly sat up straight in the saddle, alert, “Unless that’s his plan: like the Museum, distracting us, splitting us up, so he can attack us where we least expect!”

She wheeled them round and urged the Yale forward, out through the gate to the park and down a side street towards the main road. They came cantering out from between two tall buildings and Oscar suddenly realised that they were right outside the White Tower. The police were already there in force, with cars pulled across all the roads, blocking all directions off.

The Yale bucked and wrenched round, balking at the flashing lights, as policemen ducked and ran from them. Ridley pulled hard on the reins, pulling them round and the Yale leapt up, bouncing over the roof of a police car and down the other side into the empty road.

Almost immediately sirens started up behind them as they went careering down the road at full tilt, and Oscar could hear the complaining of tires from somewhere behind. Ahead of them was another junction, with more cars blocking it off and this time with policemen running forward, trying to stop them.

A police car came squealing out of a side street, fish-tailing to a screeching stop as they swerved round it and then they were leaping and dodging between policemen and parked cars as Ridley tried to get them through the cordon.

The Yale leapt another car and then slipped on landing, it hooves scrabbling for purchase on the tarmac. Thrown this way and that, Oscar suddenly found himself pulled out of the saddle as Ridley jumped clear of the beast. The Yale scrambled upright again, whirling this way and that, scattering policemen, as Ridley ran for a side street, still carrying Oscar.

“No time for all this…” she gasped, but Oscar couldn’t see how she hoped to out run all these policemen while carrying him.

Then she grabbed hold of a lamp post as they ran past and they sprang outwards and upwards: she kicked off against a wall and then bounced off a window sill, a cornice, and suddenly they were up on the roofs of London and running, bounding, leaping along between the chimneys.

Ridley swung Oscar round, onto her back, and he clung on for dear life as she leapt across a narrow alley and went sliding across the wide roof of a theatre, then a single, suspended, breathless moment as they arced out over a wide street in one long jump, a thump, a landing, a run and another leap, the empty air around them unnaturally silent.

Then they were back among the roofs and the turrets and the chimneys, careening down tiles, then catching hold of a balustrade to swing out and across to a flagpole, the sudden rustle of leaves in the roof garden and gravel underfoot, then slipping across a sloping glass roof to a wide, flat area where they dodged between aerials and pipes to a higher roof beyond.

The roof of London was an extraordinary place. As he bounced along, Oscar felt that he was seeing somehow behind the scenes, places that only pigeons ever visited, lonely gargoyles that no one ever noticed, deserted floors of buildings with weeds growing in them, odd little wells and courtyards with no doors to them, a view of the city that few ever got to see.

Even the famous sights were unrecognisable from up here, they leapt at you, unsuspected, the unnervingly empty Trafalgar Square, the broad run of the top of Admiralty Arch, the leads of Whitehall, and then there they were, dropping once more into the chaos of Downing Street.

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!”