The dagger stopped moving. Black angled it so the point was just beneath Matthew’s lower lip. “You know too much, little man. Lash anchored the Volcano off Newquay just as it’s supposed to be, so when I come for you it won’t be with bombshells, it will be with …” He paused, conjuring up an appropriate term. “Deathknells in the night,” he said. His mouth of sharpened teeth grinned. “Bring the book back to me, Matthew. That’s what my master demands of you.” The dagger’s tip was just about to draw a droplet of blood, but Matthew steeled himself and didn’t move.

There was a knock at the door.

“Yes?” Black called.

“The coach is ready for him.” It was the Owl speaking. “Bring him to the dining room.”

Black motioned with a flourish of the blade. “After you.”

On the way from the library to the dining room, Matthew was taking in every detail he could gather about the house … where the central staircase was, how far it was from the staircase to the entrance foyer, how far the door down to the murder pit was from the dining room, the distance from the dining room to the parlor, and everything else he could slip into his brain. He was going to need the details for what he was planning. Of course it was a desperate plan and might go wrong in the first few minutes. He was unsure he would be up to the beginning of it, but he had no choice. It was either try this or be taken on the road back to Y Beautiful Bedd and there was no time to even pretend Fell was going to give up the book. Fell might have a dozen copies hidden away somewhere in the village—if indeed there were a dozen copies of that thing in existence—but to make a gift of one to Cardinal Black? No, it would never happen.

“Here’s our morning traveller!” boomed Samson Lash as Matthew entered the dining room. The others seated at the table for the breakfast feast Lash had promised regarded Matthew with less enthusiasm and more pure disdain. At the far end of the table Elizabeth Mulloy did not look up from her platter of scrambled eggs, ham and corncakes. Matthew noted that Lazarus Firebaugh was absent, likely either sleeping or having breakfast in his quarters. “Ready for the journey, I hope!” Lash said.

“Here’s some breakfast for him,” said Merda, who followed it with a thrown biscuit that hit Matthew squarely in the middle of his forehead. “Want another?” He reached for the tray on which the other biscuits rested.

“Come now!” Lash chided. “Let’s don’t be antagonistic! You have a week of being perfectly ordinary citizens and enjoying all the charms of London!”