Cuddy staggered back from his lectern as the terrible darkness plummeted towards him, tipping over the edge of the stage and down into the arrangement of flowers beneath. Skelton landed gently on the stage, the shadows boiling out around him. The robes coiled up and around the lectern and swept it from the stage. He stepped forward to face the Magi as Cuddy pulled himself out of a clump of ferns and started back up a set of steps into the safety of the crowd.

“You stand at a crucial moment in your history,” Skelton’s voice was amused, taunting them, “The fate of the country… the world… rests with you…”

“Yes! Yes, it does!” Cuddy scrambled into view up on a chair and the white dragon came clattering down to hang in the sir beside him, “And we will seize our moment.”

“Not if someone stops you.”

“Who? You? You’ve challenged the Magi before in this very Hall, and have been defeated before, too, by only a few Knights… and now, now, you face an army of Magi who have been preparing for this very moment: how exactly do you think you are going to stop us now?”

Skelton raised an eyebrow: “How else, but with an army of my own?” and he raised his arms up and spoke into the air, “Now! You are free! Free to fight our last battle!”

And with his words the Erl King’s robes suddenly exploded outwards in a great rustling wave of shadow. Tattered ends of cloth twisted free, coiling up into the air, spreading threadbare wings and opening baleful, dim eyes, tendrils of threads wove together into black bundles of spiders on thin twining legs, climbing over each other to the front of the stage. Where Skelton had stood, wreathed about in his coat of dark blood there was now a whispering army of shreds, a swirling crowd of creatures that scuttled and batted around him.

The assembled Magi cowered back as the Erl King’s horde massed before them and Skelton, in the middle of it all, smiled to himself and leant on his umbrella.

“Dark Spirits,” Maggs whispered to Oscar, “All the Dark Spirits that gave the Erl King his power - he has set them free: and given himself an army to fight with…”

“Well,” Skelton looked around the hall; “Let’s get this over with, shall we?” and the army of Dark Spirits broke like a wave of shadow into the hall beyond. The Magi in the stalls disappeared momentarily under the whirling cloud of spirits, but then a bright light burst through the shadow as the White Dragon came rushing up from below, scattering the Dark Spirits like smoke in the wind.

The Dragon rattled round the hall above the heads of the Magi, glittering and flaming with light, before dropping back to Cuddy.

“This is our moment!” The Dragon coiled round Cuddy in a stream of rushing, shining armour, “This is where we strike! Strike now, Magi! For the Brotherhood, for the future, strike!”

And all around the Magi the furniture of the hall reared up, an implacable army of iron limbs and unflinching wooden backs, forming ranks around their masters. The Dark Spirits gathered again behind Skelton, who advanced slowly to the front of the stage.

“Oh, don’t worry, Master Cuddy,” said Skelton, “I’ll come to you,” and he twisted the handle of his umbrella, pulling away and casting up the black cloth, revealing, hidden inside, a long, thin rapier that gleamed in the hall lights. Skelton smiled and flourished his sword.

“En garde, Master Cuddy,” and he leapt from the stage into the Magi, the cloth of his umbrella unfurling into life behind, great bat wings that drove the enemy from around him as the Dark Spirits followed his charge up the aisle towards Cuddy.

“Stop him!” shrieked Cuddy, scrambling back over the Magi behind him, and the White Dragon threw itself forward at Skelton. He swiped at it with his sword but it swung its head up at the last moment, coiling back on it self, to fill the aisle between Skelton and Cuddy. It rattled its scales and bared its teeth.

“Hand to hand against the greatest Spirit in Britain,” Skelton’s smile widened, “This ought to be interesting,” and he threw himself at the Dragon as the ranks of spirits closed in around him and the Hall exploded in battle.

“Oscar, get down!” Maggs grabbed hold of Oscar’s collar and dragged him back as a chair came hurtling up and crashed through Sir Isaac Newton’s head.

“The Dragon’s helping them,” Oscar fought against Maggs’ grip, “We’ve got to do something!”

“We are!” Maggs hauled him round the back of the pedestal the Charter sat on, “You stay here, out of the way - I’m going to carry on looking for… Ah! Get off, you awful thing!”

Oscar turned to see Maggs kicking out against a small stained glass boar who doggedly hanging on to the toe of her shoe with its little lead teeth. Before he could do anything, the little black cat leapt down from a chair straight into the boar, shattering it into pieces. Maggs staggered back into a chair while the cat batted the pieces of glass around the floor. Oscar was just about to go to Maggs when he realised something: just out of the corner of his eye he could see a word carved into the pedestal he was hiding behind, and that word was: ‘King’.

He turned and looked at the carving:

‘This stone was laid by His Majesty the King, George I in the year 1717′

“Maggs!”

“I’m alright, Oscar, I’m just a bit… out of breath…”

“No, no! I mean, good, I’m glad you are, but… Look! The King!”

“Oscar! That must be it!” Maggs scrambled over to join him on the floor under the table, “The King must have laid the stone that sealed the great work: this is it! This is what the rhyme meant!”

“But what do we do now?”

“Well, if I’m right and this is the key to the Great Work, then all we have to do is remove it.”

“It’s been there for hundreds of years Maggs - how are we going to move it?”

“We need a tool or something…” Maggs stood up, looking around, “Aha! Perfect!” She leaned over Oscar head and then stepped back hauling one of the candlesticks from the table up over her head. “Look out, Oscar!”

Oscar flung himself to one side as Maggs half fell, half threw herself at the pedestal, swinging the candlestick wildly. It struck the stone under the table at an angle, striking off sparks. The sound of the candlestick seemed to ring through Oscar like the tolling of a great bell, impossibly loud and deep, making the whole room tremble and rock. The stained glass cracked and shattered, spraying the room with shards of colour. Maggs stumbled away from the table, dropping the candlestick as Oscar dived under the chairs, covering his head with his arms against the glass.

As the echoes of the strike died away, Oscar became extraordinarily aware of the terrible silence that they left behind. For a moment he wondered whether the noise had made him deaf, but then he realised he could hear the tiny noises of crumbs of glass dropping to the floor. All the noise of battle from the hall beyond had stopped.

“The Charter Room!” Cuddy’s voice cut through the silence, “They’re doing something in there! Stop them!”

Oscar scrambled out from under the chairs just in time to hear the dreadful clashing and rattling of the White Dragon as it came roaring through the empty space where it had once stood, its stained glass lit from within by a pale, flickering fire. It wound through the window frames whirling up into the roof of the Charter Room and then dropping down, its mouth open wide, its teeth glinting and clattering in its head, dropping straight to towards Oscar…

And then the little black cat leapt up, over his shoulder and landed a paw full of claws right on the Dragon’s nose.

Once again Skelton set the ornithopter hurtling through the streets as low as he dared, rushing down towards the dome of the Cathedral and then beyond, where the skyscrapers dropped away and they were forced lower, in between the roofs of the Victorian buildings, just above the street lights below, between chimney pots and aerials, rustling the leaves of the trees as they whooshed past.

“The Temple’s not far away now, are we ready?” Skelton looked back over his shoulder at them.

“What’s the plan?” Maggs pulled herself forward to see where they were.

“The Erl King’s power can hide us from being detected - I’ll set us down on the roof, we’ll be able to get inside from there… Now hang on…”

The ornithopter banked sharply and wheeled round the outside of a round barrel of a building and then it turned and there it was: The Temple, right ahead of them. They dove straight down towards the roof, the ornithopter spreading its wings wide at the last moment to bring them to a juddering, skittering stop on the tiles.

Skelton was at the door before they had stopped moving, opening it wide to reveal the roof glistening with recent rain.

“You gnomes stay here and guard Ridley, no one is to get in, understand? Flee if you have to… Maggs, Oscar, hang on to me…” without waiting for a reply he reached over and scooped Oscar up into his coat and then, taking Maggs’ outstretched hand, he leapt out of the hatch into the night.

They skittered down a slope of tiles to a low parapet that Skelton swung over easily, dropping through the cool air to a shallower roof. He ran up to the ridge and then along it to where it met a gable wall that rose up above them. In one fluid motion, hand over hand, they swarmed up the wall, although Oscar could see no handholds as they passed over.

Then they were up on the ridge of a high gable, looking down on the roofs of London stretched out around them. Maggs craned round to look behind.

“The Great Hall and the Charter Room are back that way.”

Oscar turned to look - behind them he could now see the tower over the main entrance to the Temple and, below it, a round area of roof that must be the Great Hall.

“It is,” said Skelton, “But we’re going to my chambers first…”

And with that he ran down the slope of the roof and dropped off the edge…

…onto a balcony two floors below.

Oscar recognised it now - they were outside the windows through which he had seen the Erl King in his uncle’s chambers - before he had even known that his uncle was the Erl King.

“Damn,” Skelton had gone to open the windows but then had stopped himself.

“What?”

“I forgot. I’m not the Lord Protector anymore - and no one can enter here without the Lord Protector’s permission.”

“Then allow me,” said Oscar, wriggling out of Uncle Rufus’ grasp and laying his hand on the window. It creaked open at his touch. “You may enter…”

“How did you do that?” Uncle Rufus was evidently stunned.

“They made me Lord Protector,” his Uncle’s amazement made him a little shy, “I don’t know why…”

“My fault really,” said Maggs, climbing through the window, “And no offence to you, Oscar, but I now think Cuddy felt it would be a popular gesture that would make the position simply symbolic and no threat to his plans.”

“Ye gods and little fishes,” said Skelton, following them into the room, “It’s age discrimination. Fired in favour of a younger man. A much, much younger man. I’d say congratulations, Oscar old chap, but what we’re about to do is either going to get you fired or render the entire concept of a Lord Protector null and void - still, good work, all the same - best man for the job, if you ask me…”

“Thanks.”

“Now, can anyone see my umbrella?”

“Your umbrella? We’ve broken into the Lord Protector’s chambers to look for an umbrella?” Maggs was aghast.

“Well,” said Skelton, with a sly little smile, “You never know when you’re going to need one, do you. Ah, there it is.”

He reached down behind a chair and pulled out his tightly rolled black umbrella, brandishing it happily. It looked ridiculously incongruous in combination with the furious robes of the Erl King.

“Now,” he said, “I think I ought to hand over the reins to my successor properly and introduce you, Oscar, to some of the tricks of the trade. You see that bookshelf behind you - could you fetch me that copy of ‘A Beginner’s Guide to Secret Passages’?”

Oscar, a little confused, although rather flattered that his Uncle seemed to be taking him seriously as the Lord Protector, crossed to the bookcase and reached up to pull the book down. Only, instead of coming away from the shelf, the book simply pivoted up on the base of its spine and, with a little click, the whole bookcase began to swing away from the wall towards him. It was a door to a secret passage!

“Sorry,” his Uncle was grinning from ear to ear, “I’m getting a little nervous and can’t resist being melodramatic. These passages only open for the Lord Protector, you see, they run all through the Temple - that’s why I wanted to come in here: we can get straight to the Charter Room without being seen. If we may, Lord Protector.”

“Of course, be my guests,” and Oscar followed his Uncle through the door, with Maggs following. The bookcase swung shut behind them softly.

It wasn’t quite what Oscar had expected of a secret passage. It was dry, warm, clean and lit by dim bare bulbs at irregular intervals. And when something brushed against his leg it was not a rat but the little black cat instead.

“Hello,” he said, stopping to scratch it between the ears, “How did you get in here?”

“Ah,” said Skelton, without turning round, “The proverbial bad penny. This way.”

They turned a corner then climbed a short flight of stairs. On one side was bare stone work, on the other bricks and wooden walls. They came to a place where the passage divided and Skelton turned left and led them under an arch into a narrow room. Narrow, but high - far above Oscar could see a thin bridge crossing in the other direction - another part of the secret network.

“But how do you keep this all secret?” He wondered aloud, “Are we inside the walls? It seems too big to fit…”

“This is the Temple, Oscar, headquarters of magic in Britain. Not all of it fits and yet it’s all inside. Ah, here we are…” And Skelton opened a small door in the wall.

Oscar stepped through to find himself coming out from behind one of the wooden seats that lined the walls of the Charter Room. He let it swing shut behind him. Oddly, even though the last time he had seen the room it had been full of people, it seemed somehow smaller now. The room was dim and shadowy - the only lights on were small flickering ones set in niches high up on the walls. This meant that the stained glass that made up the whole of the opposite wall glowed with the light from the room beyond - the Great Hall itself.

The Hall was evidently fully lit and Oscar could hear a great murmur filtering through the glass - it must be full of people.

“No lights, I’m afraid,” whispered Skelton, “And keep your voices down - they’re having some kind of meeting in there - we can’t risk being discovered.”

Oscar looked round at the high wooden stalls and the blood red tiles flickering in the wavering light. Shadows kept darting across the walls, making the place seethe with suggested movement. He could hear a voice the other side of the stained glass - a cold, clear voice: Cuddy’s, it had to be. Just there, the other side of a thin pane of glass, the man who had tried to kill them all.

“Can you see anything?” he whispered to his godfather - he was suddenly anxious to be out of there.

“Lots of things,” Skelton grinned back at him, “But nothing useful.” His Uncle Rufus was evidently finding this a lot more exciting than he was.

“By the King’s own work shall be brought to naught,” Maggs was impatient, “They key must be the Charter…”

“But it might not be,” Skelton tried to sound more serious, “So Maggs, you check it, Oscar, have a look at the stained glass, look for any Royal crests or portraits - I’ll check the walls, since I’m the only one of us who can get up there…” and he stepped up into the air, rising into the shadows above them.

Oscar turned and looked at the stained glass. It was odd looking at it from the other side - it all looked slightly unnerving somehow - it wasn’t just that all the writing was the wrong way round; somehow all the figures looked twisted and uncomfortable. Here, closest to him, was a man in a long wig that he now knew to be Isaac Newton. His head was turned to look over his shoulder and it made him look as if his legs were on the wrong way round.

Around the figures the glass was a mass of decorations, leaves and bits of buildings - there could be anything hidden in there. Already he could see two odd looking faces peeking out at him from by Newton’s nose. Then, in the middle, was the white dragon. That was already twisted round several times into all kinds of odd shapes: it was even holding its own tail in its mouth…

…and as Oscar looked, with a small ‘chink’ sound of glass tapping, the white dragon winked at him.

Had he really seen that? He turned to look at the others. Maggs was absorbed in the Charter and Skelton was somewhere high overhead, examining the roof. He looked back - perhaps he had been mistaken - the dragon looked exactly as he had first seen it.

Then, with a grinding, cracking sound, it dropped its tail from its mouth and smiled at him.

“Look…” he only had time to get the first word out before the dragon pulled itself backwards away from the lead surrounding it, and, with a great rending of metal and clattering of glass, swooped out into the centre of the Great Hall behind it, leaving Oscar standing in front of a dragon shaped hole in the window, looking down on the assembled Magi below.

“We stand at a crucial moment in our history,” Cuddy was shouting at the tiers of excited Magi, “The fate of the country… the world… rests with us…” he stopped and turned at the sound of the dragon, as the rest of the Magi raised their heads to look.

The light from the Great Hall filled the Charter Room, illuminating perfectly Rufus Skelton hanging calmly in the air in full view of everyone.

There was a great gasp from the crowd below.

“You two keep looking,” hissed Skelton, “and I’ll distract them.”

“How…” began Maggs.

“I’m sure I’ll think of something,” and the Erl Kings robes seethed and stretched around, gathering a skein of shadows that momentarily blotted out the light as he plunged through the gap in the stained glass and dropped down onto the stage of the Great Hall.

This meant that they were right behind him when he crossed the threshold out of the Black Chamber, back into the Tower, and Oscar saw the sudden transformation as his Uncle stopped being just his Uncle in a funny outfit and became the Erl King, how he rose and stretched, becoming thinner, more angular, how the robes boiled and billowed, tendrils of smoke merging into the shadows of the room around him, until he seemed to fill the space. For a moment Oscar tasted the bitter tang of the Erl King’s shadow of fear against his back teeth, and then his Uncle remembered that they were with him and withdrew it, so that it receded away like a barely recalled nightmare.

The anteroom was now empty - the guard the Ridley had knocked out had gone. Instead there were now a group of Knights Errant clustered in the doorway. It was an odd sight - it was as if there were a glass wall in the doorway that they were all pressed up against, trying to get in but stopped by some invisible power. And there, in the centre of the room, sat the little black cat, staring at them all.

It turned as Skelton, Maggs and Oscar came through the door and Oscar could have sworn that it nodded at them in welcome. As the Erl King spidered out to fill the room the guards in the doorway drew back away from him in fear, but they still blocked the exit.

“Emergency exit, I think,” said Skelton, his voice rasping through the mask, and he gestured with his right hand. The stones of the wall burst outward, swooping up and away, revealing an empty patch of night sky.

“Come on you two,” and Skelton grabbed hold of Maggs and Oscar and Oscar felt the robes twine about him, at once silky and rough, like they were edged with tiny teeth. And then they were dropping through the gap and out into the cold darkness.

They fell down through the night with a great rushing and fluttering as the Erl King’s cloak spread out around them, its coils and shreds beating against the air. It had been raining while they were inside and drops still specked at Oscar face as they feel.

“Is that what you came here in?” Skelton was pointing down at the ornithopter, which was still sitting on the lawn, now with two Knights Errant standing guard over it.

“Yes, it’s an ornithopter…”

“You’re braver than I thought.”

The Shadow of the Erl King preceded them and the Knights Errant fled from the craft as they dropped towards them, scampering for the safety of the Tower. Skelton hit the ground running, bundling up the steps. Erik and Karl had rushed to the door to meet them, but now they fled from the terrible figure rushing towards them, leaping up onto the red leather benches on the far side of the cabin.

Oscar found himself and Maggs flung after them, onto the benches, as Skelton turned straight to the controls, the robes creeping out to explore all the knobs and dials with their thin black fingers.

“It’s him, it’s him,” hissed Erik, “We’ve got him cornered now…”

“Hasn’t he got us cornered?” whispered Karl.

“Hold tight,” the Erl King’s voice was a shocking interruption and the gnomes cowered back as the ornithopter creaked and juddered, preparing for take off.

Just at the last minute, just as the craft stretched its wings and the door was closing, the black cat leapt up through the thinning gap and into the cabin. It sauntered across to the benches and jumped up onto Oscar’s lap.

“Oh,” said Skelton, “decided to join us, have you?” and the ornithopter threw itself into the sky.

Sheer walls of lights and shining glass flashed past them as the ornithopter swooped up from the Tower and plunged into the canyons of the City. The streets followed a medieval maze between the shining monoliths of the skyscrapers and Oscar and Maggs had to cling on to the walls to stop themselves being thrown about the cabin as it twisted this way and that between the towers of office buildings.

Skelton wrestled with the controls, trying to keep them low and out of sight from watching spies, as they raced their own reflection along the walls of glass, wheeled round church spires and darted beneath the gaze of monumental statues.

Suddenly they climbed steeply and Oscar had a glimpse of floors of lights rushing down past them in the darkness. There was a sickening moment of weightlessness and then they dropped suddenly and stopped. There was the sound of claws scrabbling on stone and the creaking of the leathery wings as the ornithopter settled down.

Oscar scrambled to the window and peered out. They were perched on the pinnacle of some great skyscraper, high above the infernal orange glow of the streets, like an eagle on a crag. There in the distance below them he could see the clear pale bulk of St Paul’s Cathedral, shining up through the rain. The cabin rocked slightly as the ornithopter shifted the grip of its claws and the cross winds, confused by the narrow streets, buffeted against them.

Uncle Rufus had pulled off his mask, crossed to the benches and was now laying Ridley out flat, examining her wound with Maggs.

“What’s he done to her?” asked Erik, eyeing him nervously.

“I’ll deal with him,” Karl was trying to sound threatening, but was keeping his distance all the same, “We’ve dealt with him before…”

“You two pipe down,” said Maggs, “We need to concentrate.”

“Are we his prisoners?” whispered Erik.

“Lord Skelton just rescued us all from certain death, so I think you might be a little grateful,” The gnomes stepped back, abashed.

“But he’s bad,” complained Erik, “I can feel it, I can feel the dark magic…”

“It was him that took you away from us,” Karl was not going to be appeased, “He has to be dealt with.”

“That’s true,” Oscar hadn’t thought about that part of the story, “I still don’t understand that…”

“We don’t need to understand,” Karl was determined, “He just needs to be punished.”

“He could at least apologise,” Erik, however, seemed to be prepared to compromise, “If he was sorry, I mean, really…”

“Oh, don’t expect a villain like that to apologise,” Karl was undeterred, “Not him.”

“Little Gnomes!” Skelton whirled round angrily and they leapt back away from him, “I am sure I would be sorry if I had time to be but we are trying to save Mistress Ridley’s life so will you SHUT UP!”

The gnomes said nothing, apparently frozen with fear and Skelton snorted and returned to Ridley.

“Of course,” it was Karl’s voice and Skelton’s back stiffened in anticipation, “If you hadn’t wiped away the mistress’ old life, she’d still remember that she gave us all kinds of healing abilities. It was part of our training. Very important she said.”

Maggs turned slowly to look at them but Skelton just cast his eyes upwards, “Spirits preserve us,” he muttered.

“Can you help us?” Maggs asked.

Erik craned past her to look at Ridley, “I think now the bleeding’s stopped we can - better than dark magic could, anyway.”

“If I let you help, will you shut up?” asked Skelton.

“If we help you, you’ll have time to explain and apologise, won’t you?” said Erik as he ran down the bench and climbed up onto Ridley’s unconscious form, Karl following.

Skelton barked a short, sharp laugh and stepped away, back to the control panel.

“Alright, alright, well, perhaps you’re right, since I still haven’t even apologised to Maggs, yet:” Skelton grimaced and looked uncomfortable, “I’m sorry for what I and the Wild Ride did to you, I really am, Maggs, you didn’t deserve that…” He looked genuinely contrite and Maggs patted his arm.

“It’s not really that much to lose, if you can’t remember what you lost,” she said.

“So that was you?” Oscar was still trying to work the whole thing out, “You were the one who attacked Maggs?”

“I’m afraid so, yes…”

“But why?”

In response, his Uncle gestured at the window.

“Look down there, Oscar - what can you see?”

Oscar looked back out of the window. Far, far below was a narrow street, a clear valley of orange light between the dark buildings. It was empty. Then a small figure emerged from one side, stepping out tentatively on to the pavement. A moment later it retreated again. A dark, angry glow began to fill the pit below, a great, churning of fire and smoke. And a glittering something came weaving down the road, dark and gleaming: a dragon, its claws sparking on the asphalt, his head questing as it tested the pavements for life. And then it was round the corner and gone.

“An early winter’s evening not long before Christmas and the streets are empty,” Uncle Rufus was looking over his shoulder, “Only the servants of the Magi are abroad, searching for the disobedient. Where is everybody? They should be out, celebrating, preparing for the holidays, having fun. Instead they’re hiding inside, locked up with dragons and knight mares stalking the streets.”

“And quite right, too,” interrupted Karl, “With maniacs like you on the loose.”

“Yes, that was my mistake,” Skelton shook his head, wearily, “You see, Oscar, this was what I was afraid of, when Maggs and Hopkins first formed the Knights Errant all those years ago - at least I was right about that, I suppose…”

“But Maggs wasn’t Cuddy - they were trying to help people,” protested Oscar.

“And you don’t think that’s what Cuddy believes he’s doing? Good intentions are no guarantee of good people, I’m afraid. If you think you know what’s best for people and you find you have the power to overcome any objections, then you will do what you like, how you like, no matter what anyone else says: and that is very, very wrong indeed.”

“So you decided to summon the Wild Ride and make everyone do what you wanted instead,” said Erik, looking up from his work. He appeared to be binding up Ridley’s wound with what looked to Oscar like spider’s webs.

“Yes,” said Skelton, ruefully, “Touché. That’s precisely what happened. I tried to warn them, both the Knights Errant and the Three Wise Lords of the time, but no one would listen to me - I was a lot younger then, and my beard wasn’t nearly as frightening.

“I wanted to make them understand, to show them what it would be like for ordinary people under the rule of the Magi, to be governed and ordered by such frightening things, so I learned the Old, Secret magic, made pacts with the Darklings and conjured the Wild Ride…

“Except that it worked slightly too well - I realised that I could do more that just make a point, I could actually stop them, I could drain Maggs’ power, lock up Hopkins, drive the Order underground… I got, well, I’m afraid I got carried away… I controlled the Wild Ride and, through them, I could control the Magi - I became Lord Protector, created the Knights Watchmen and the Veil and hid magic away for twenty years.

“Until, that is, the whole thing turned upside down.”

“Thursby and the new Knights Errant?” Oscar felt he knew where they were now.

“That daft lot? Moons and Circles, no - at least not at first - no, it was the Darklings - Darklings that I knew full well weren’t any part of my Wild Ride - appearing out of nowhere, attacking Magi unsuspected, undetectable and completely unbelievable. I’d become too confident, I think, too sure of myself - I was caught completely off guard and I messed it up, frankly, I didn’t take your Knights Errant - and I’m including you in that, young man -I didn’t take them seriously at all, until it was too late, and then all I managed was to get this poor young lady in trouble.”

“Ridley?”

“Who do you think gave the promising young Knight Watchman the mission of infiltrating the Knights Errant? I should have guessed that she’d find them more exciting than being a boring old Watchman, and perhaps she was right at that, too.”

“But you think that Cuddy is behind all this?”

“Oh yes - I can’t quite see how, yet…”

“I think I can fill in that bit,” Maggs interjected, “If Hopkins and I were really reserking Darklings before, then he must have already known a lot about the Old magic, and then all that time in the White Tower and his library…”

“Library?” Skelton was taken by surprise, “What library?”

“In the tower,” continued Maggs, “We saw it, didn’t we, Oscar? Amazering place, books I thought had vanished hundreds of years ago - Cuddy must have disuncovered it and realised he could use it, he could use Hopkins’ knowledge and power to create his own Wild Ride, to use that fear of the Darklings to pull his new Knights Errant together.”

“That sounds about right,” Skelton shook his head, “That’ll be why he possessed Hopkins, poor chap.”

“So Cuddy planned everything?”

“I’m pretty certain - everyone else: Thursby, you, even Hopkins, have just been pawns in his game.”

“But what’s he trying to do?”

“Rule the world, I think, or something like it. Sounds rather silly when you say it out loud, doesn’t it?” Skelton laughed a little, “And I’m not sure even he would think about it like that, but I’m fairly sure that he thinks that the Magi should be in charge and that he should be in charge of the Magi and if making that happen means burning down the whole of civilisation around him, he would gladly light the fuse.”

“Very well, then,” said Karl, jumping down from the bench, “What are you going to do about it?”

“How is she?” asked Skelton, ignoring him for the moment, “Is she alright?”

“I think so,” Erik was wiping his hands with cobweb, “The wound is cleaned and bound and the bleeding’s stopped. She’s strong and we’ve woven what charms we can.”

“Good,” Skelton turned back to the controls of the ornithopter, “Then we can get on with answering your question, Master Gnome. I can tell you precisely what we’re going to do about it: we’re going to destroy him by destroying the Magi, and we will destroy the Magi by destroying the Great Work.”

The gnomes stared at his back, open-mouthed.

“But… how?”

“Oh details, details,” Skelton grinned at them over his shoulder, “Hold on tight: going down!”

And the ornithopter folded its wings and plunged towards the street.

“I’m afraid,” said Maggs, “We weren’t actually looking for you…”

“It was in Maggs’ notes,” explained Oscar, “She had all the notes about the Black Chamber and Cowper. We thought she might have found out away to beat the Wild Ride and the secret might be here.”

“Cowper?” Skelton was confused, “Why would he have known anything about the Wild Ride?”

“But I must have been trying to discover a way to stop them,” protested Maggs, “I mean, that’s why they attacked me, isn’t it?”

“Not at all,” Skelton was struggling with Hopkins’ boots, “You were researching the Great Work, trying to find a way to complete it, so the Darklings tried to stop you…”

“Complete the Great Work?”

“Of course, that was your plan, all those years ago - you and your Knights Errant: complete the Great Work and make the power of the Magi unassailable. Naturally the Darklings weren’t so keen on that.”

“Then why was I making notes about Cowper?”

“Well, Cowper tried to destroy the Great Work, didn’t he? Perhaps he discovered something about how it worked, something that would help…” he suddenly stopped and stared away into space, “Stars and spirits…”

“Rufus?” Maggs prompted him.

“Undo the Great Work!” Skelton dropped the boots in his excitement, “We don’t stand a chance against Cuddy and the rest of the Magi now, but if we could finish Cowper’s work…”

“…if we could undo the Great Work,” continued Maggs, “It would remove their power competeley…”

“…and we could stop Cuddy in his tracks!” Skelton bent down and started trying to pull on a boot while hopping ungainly round the room, “It’s perfect!”

“Perfect…” Maggs shook her head, “There’s only one niggling niggler: it can’t be done. The secret of the Great Work died with Lord Newton: Cowper failed and was locked in here for the rest of his life.”

“Precisely,” Skelton was struggling to push his foot into the high boot, “Those notes that you were following: you must have discovered that Cowper had left some clue in here.”

“Of course!” Maggs was smiling again, “Oscar, check the door round the corner…”

“Any thing with Cowper’s name on!” shouted Skelton after him, “Anything that looks like a notebook. In fact, just bring anything…”

Oscar ran out of the cell and down the corridor, past the entrance and through the door at the other end. On the other side was a small, bare room, obviously meant simply for guards or for waiting visitors, which had nothing in it except an old table, a couple of battered looking chairs and a small bookcase hanging on the wall.

He pulled the chair out from under the table and climbed up onto it so he could see the bookshelf properly. He didn’t know what he had been expecting, but it hadn’t been a whole row of thick books with big shiny letters and pictures of explosions and guns on the front. These were following by more thick books with spaceships and knights on them. It wasn’t quite the reading he might have expected of a Magi, but then, perhaps, they tried to keep books of magic out of the Black Chamber.

But there, at the end, were a small bundle of papers and notebooks. He grabbed them all and dropped them down on the table, then jumped down and started going through them. Some of them were evidently letters, there were a couple of address books where tiny notes filled up all the space between the names, there was even an apparently rather monotonous diary. And there was a black notebook bulging with loose papers, tied up with ribbon with a scrap of paper pasted to the front: “Thos. Cowper. Commonplace Book.”

He ran back to the cell to discover his Uncle Rufus standing in the middle of the room, with the Erl King’s coat, the colour of dried blood, wreathing round him, the tails twitching and swaying in a breeze that only they could feel. The coat made an odd shape in the middle, as if his godfather had suddenly put on a lot of weight, and Oscar suddenly realised that he could see Ridley’s blonde curls sticking out of the collar of the coat. The rest of her must be buttoned up inside. Skelton saw him staring.

“The coat can carry her, and it should help stop the bleeding, once we get outside… what have you got there?”

“It says it belonged to a Thos Cowper, is that the same person?”

“Thomas,” said Maggs, “The ‘Thos’ stands for Thomas: it’s him - let’s have a look.”

Oscar handed her the book and she undid the ribbon as she crossed to the table under the window. The sun must have been coming up outside because a dim, silvery glow was starting to filter through.

Maggs emptied all the loose papers onto the desk, spreading them out. The she started leafing through the notebook. Skelton started unfolding bits of paper, laying them out flat. Oscar picked one up. The handwriting was cramped and small and… not handwriting at all.

“Symbols…” he said

“Cipher…” said Skelton

“It’s all in code…” Maggs threw the notebook down, “We don’t have time for this: Ridley said she called reinforcements - they’re bound to check in here when they can’t find her…”

The notebook had fallen open on the table, the broken spine flopping back to reveal the first page. There was something written on it in plain English. Oscar bent over to have a look:

“Thos. Cowper Fecit 1811.

The terrible work the King hath wrought,

Shall by the King’s own hand be brought to naught.”

“That must be where you got it from, Maggs,” he said, pointing to the verse.

“Oh yes…” Maggs looked puzzled, “But I always thought it must be something about the Wild Ride…”

“But it wasn’t,” Skelton finished her thought, “And yet it was so important that you remembered it even after what I did to you…”

“So,” asked Oscar, “if it wasn’t about the Darklings, what is it about?”

“That,” said Skelton, “Is a very good question… well, if Cowper wrote it then it must have been about his researches, about the Great Work…”

“He certainly thought of the Great Work as a Great Terror…” said Maggs, “But why would that be the King’s fault?”

“Of course!” Skelton clapped his hands, “It is the King’s work - it was done in his name: his seal is on the Charter in the Temple!”

“I’ve seen that!” said Oscar.

“So we need the King’s own hand to break it?” Maggs was incredulous, “What do we have to do, catnap the Prince of Wales?”

“Hm… seems unlikely, doesn’t it?” Skelton stared at the rhyme, “Unless…”

“What?”

“The King’s Seal and signature are on the Charter in the Temple…”

Maggs was staring at him open-mouthed.

“I don’t understand,” Oscar was bewildered.

“The work of the King’s own hand… his own handwriting?” Rufus was thinking out loud.

“It’s something to do with the Charter… we need to get into the Charter Room” the light was beginning to dawn on Maggs, “That’s going to be interesting…”

Skelton suddenly looked around him.

“What happened to the cat? The one that was with you in the Temple when you caught me? What happened to him?”

“He was with us when we came here,” Oscar suddenly realised that he hadn’t seen the little black cat the whole time they had been in the Black Chamber.

“Of course,” said Skelton, “He wouldn’t come in here - too dangerous for him… Come on, we’ve got to find him…” he picked up the Erl King’s white mask and started strapping it on.

“The cat? Why?”

“Aha: you’ll see…” and he ran from the room, with Oscar and Maggs hot on his heels.

“Forgive me for not coming to meet you, but I’m a little tied up at the moment.”

The room was plain and stone walled like the others. It had a small window high in one wall that was letting in a little light, beneath which was a solid antique table, with some food and an old-fashioned oil lamp on it. And on the far wall, chained with his arms above his head, dressed only in a shirt and ragged trousers was the last person they had expected to see: one time Lord Protector of the Magi and now the country’s most wanted man, Oscar’s godfather, Rufus Skelton.

Maggs and Oscar stopped in the doorway and stared, open mouthed, at precisely the last person they expected to see. What was Skelton doing locked up in the Black Chamber? And if he was here, who was this figure dressed as the Erl King who now stepped forward into the room and threw Ridley’s body onto the ground, where she lay, moving feebly?

“Silence.”

Skelton started forward, pulling the chains taught.

“What have you done to her, you monster?”

“Silence, or… the boy… the woman…” The figure gestured at Oscar and Maggs with an inept sweep of the sword.

“If you’re going to kill us,” Skelton’s voice was cold, “You could at least face us… Master Cuddy.” He produced the name triumphantly, and Maggs gasped at it, but the dark figure just shook at him with what Oscar realised was silent laughter.

“No,” it rasped and then an awkward hand reached up and jerked off the bone white mask that covered the face, revealing the thin, drawn face of Laurence Hopkins. His narrow mouth crawled up one side of his face in what it took Oscar a while to recognise as a smile, but there was something in his eyes that looked a lot more like panic.

“Are you sure?” Skelton leant towards him, pulling on his chains, “Is that really you? Are you really here, Hopkins? Or is someone else here with you? In your head?”

“I… Hel…” Hopkins suddenly swayed, the awful bleak smile dropping from his face, then he pulled himself back upright, “Silence!”

“He’s not there now, you know, Hopkins, not in here,” Skelton was trying to look Hopkins in the eye, to fix him with his stare, “This is the Black Chamber, he can’t reach you in here…”

Hopkins seemed to be struggling to speak and then he suddenly jerked upwards, flinging out a hand that caught Oscar roughly by the neck, choking him and hauling him up onto his tiptoes, while the sword flailed around dangerously.

“I can’t… stop it…” Hopkins’ voice was strangled, broken.

“Maggs!” shouted Skelton as she scrabbled at Hopkins’ arm, trying to get him to release Oscar.

“He’s too strong,” she was almost crying with the effort and the terror of the situation, “I’m just an old woman…”

“No!” Skelton was straining at his chains as Hopkins twisted Oscar back and forth, the sword glinting in the dim light, “Talk to him - you were friends, close friends…”

“Hopkins,” Maggs tried to pull herself up to look into his face.

“Laurence,” hissed Skelton, “His name’s Laurence.”

“Laurence, listen to me, it’s Maggs, it’s… Margaret…” Hopkins’ head snapped round to look at her, “Laurence, we were friends once…” Maggs was desperately trying to stay calm and reassuring despite her panic, “I… I can’t remember, but perhaps you can… please, Laurence, for me… let the boy go…”

Oscar felt Hopkins go suddenly stiff and begin shaking violently, as if he was trying to struggle against something wound tightly round his very bones. Then he gave a terrible guttural grunt and threw Oscar and Maggs away from him, the sword clattering away in the other direction, flinging himself across the room at the wall on the other side.

Maggs caught Oscar up before either of them had hit the ground, it seemed, and bundled him away from Hopkins towards his godfather.

“Oscar, Oscar, are you alright?” she peered down at him anxiously, but his throat throbbed too much to speak and all he could do was nod.

“Maggs, the sword, quickly,” it was Skelton, leaning out across the cell to try and reach the weapon. Maggs half scurried, half fell across the room to get at it before Hopkins could recover, but she needn’t have worried, all he did was give another, lower moan, and pull himself into a tight ball in the corner.

“Oscar, are you alright?” it was Skelton’s turn to worry.

Oscar nodded, gently, so as not to disturb anything important, “I think so,” he rasped, his voice still hoarse.

“Good man,” Skelton gave him a quick smile of encouragement, “Maggs, how’s Ridley?”

Maggs looked up from where she was already examining Ridley’s wounds, “She’s losing a lot of blood, I think.”

“Right, first things first, we deal with that,” Skelton immediately became calmer, more organised, “Try and bind her up, Maggs, put pressure on the wound - Oscar, fetch me those keys Ridley had, lets see if we can get me out of these chains.”

Oscar ran across, trying not to look too closely at the dark stain spreading on Ridley’s coat, and brought the bunch of keys over to his Uncle Rufus.

“Try that big black one, yes, that one - this arm, here…”

“I don’t…” The words caught in his sore throat and he coughed and had to start the sentence again, a little more slowly this time, “I don’t understand…”

“Alright, maybe not that one, how about that brown one, there…”

“I thought you were the Erl King…”

“So did I - seems I’ve got competition now, though, doesn’t it?… that’s got it, good work!” The lock at his wrist sprang open and Skelton shook his hand, rubbing the red welt the manacle had made around it, “Mind you, I only really ever got to be the Erl King once, and look where that got me…”

“Once? What do you mean?”

Uncle Rufus took the keys from Oscar and started undoing the other chains.

“That night you caught me in the Great Hall - oh yes, don’t think I don’t blame you for all this,” he flashed Oscar a quick grin, “Passed out in the Great Hall, came round in here…”

“So you didn’t kill those guards, or attack the Prime Minister, or Maggs’ family…”

“Kill? Prime Minister? Maggs’ family?… Hm…” Skelton stopped and started at the figure curled up on the other side of the room, “Poor old Hopkins…”

“If it was him that did those things,” Maggs looked up, “Then you can save your pity.”

“But that’s just the point,” Skelton picked up the sword and walked over to Hopkins, “I’m not sure it was him, not really…” Skelton looked at the huddled man and thought for a moment, then brought the butt of the sword down hard on his head. The bunched form suddenly relaxed and sprawled, quite unconscious.

“Oscar, give me a hand, will you, I want to try and get these robes off him, they are mine, after all, and only I know their real power” Skelton started unbuttoning the Erl King’s coat, and Oscar joined him, pulling at the gloves, “They should be able to help me deal with Ridley’s injuries,” Skelton tugged at the unresponsive body, trying to get Hopkins’ arms out of the sleeves. Close to, the robes felt strange: it was hard to keep a grip on them, as if they had a life of their own, shifting and squirming under your fingers. It was odd, too, being so close to his Uncle again, as if nothing that he had seen in the last few days had happened, which, he supposed, it hadn’t for his Uncle, locked up in here, with no knowledge of what was going on.

“Cuddy,” said Maggs, suddenly, “You said it before, I’ve only just realised what you meant: you think he… he’s responsive, don’t you? You think he… he…” her voice trailed off as she stared at Hopkins’ limp shape.

“Ah, yes, the most despicable crime of the Magi: Possession - letting a spirit control another Magi,” he added for Oscar’s benefit, “Darkest of all the dark magic - I’m afraid, Maggs, I rather do think that, yes - that Master Cuddy has been controlling poor old Hopkins all along - although I don’t have any evidence, mind you, except for, you know, cui bono.”

“Is that a spell?” asked Oscar.

“The oldest kind: Occams’ razor,” his Uncle seemed to find this funny, but Oscar had no idea what he was talking about, “It’s Latin,” he explained, “‘Who benefits’, you see - ‘Follow the money’, as the Americans would say… I rather sense a controlling hand in all this - the return of the Wild Hunt, the White Tower, our little revolution - a brain working away in the background and for some reason I keep thinking about young master Cuddy. Never really liked him anyway - because, I suspect, he’s rather too like me. I recognise the way he thinks: locking me in here, for instance, that’s what I would have done - too useful to dispose of, too dangerous to…” he stopped and looked up, “Just realised: what are you three all doing here, anyway? How did you find me?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Is it safe?” wondered Maggs.

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

“Then it probably isn’t.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“So if we find out what that is…”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“The… Darklings… here?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“With who?”

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

“Skelton… the Lord…” Maggs was amazed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Fondant Fancy?” suggested Erik

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Then the study it is,” said Ridley.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What does that mean?” asked Oscar.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Only what?” demanded Oscar.

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

“Explains what?”

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

“Of course,” Maggs was nodding.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No he doesn’t,” said Oscar.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“…um… 1817…”

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

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

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

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

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

“The Tower of London?”

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

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

Ridley clapped her hands.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What?” Alberecht turned to stare at him.

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

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

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

“Thus…” said Alberecht, scornfully.

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

“What are they?” whispered Oscar to Ridley.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Alberecht scowled, “Karl?”

“Yes?”

“Shut up.”

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

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

“We were chasing him.”

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

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

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

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

“Too strong was he?”

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

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

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

“Prove it,” said Alberecht.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“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.