Wizard Suliman was looking almost as distraught as Lettie. “I wish I’d known!” he said. “If he was born a cat as part of the same spell, he may be changed back already. We’d better find out.” He strode to one of the round mirrors and made circular gestures with both hands.

The mirror—all the mirrors—at once seemed to be reflecting the room at the inn, each from a different viewpoint, as if they were hanging on the wall there. Abdullah stared from one to the other and was as alarmed at what he saw as the other three were. The magic carpet had, for some reason, been unrolled upon the floor. On it lay a plump, naked pink baby. Young as this baby was, Abdullah could see he had a personality as strong as Sophie’s. And he was asserting that personality. His legs and arms were punching the air, his face was contorted with fury, and his mouth was a square, angry hole. Though the pictures in the mirrors were silent, it was clear that Morgan was being very noisy indeed.

“Who is that man?” said Wizard Suliman. “I’ve seen him before.”

“A Strangian soldier, worker of wonders,” Abdullah said helplessly.

“Then he must remind me of someone I know,” said the wizard.

The soldier was standing beside the screaming baby, looking horrified and useless. Perhaps he was hoping the genie would do something. At any rate, he had the genie bottle in one hand. But the genie was hanging out of the bottle in several spouts of distracted blue smoke, each spout a face with its hand over its ears, as helpless as the soldier.

“Oh, the poor darling child!” said Lettie.

“The poor blessed soldier, you mean,” said Sophie. “Morgan’s furious. He’s never been anything but a kitten, and kittens can do so much more than babies can. He’s angry because he can’t walk. Ben, do you think you can—”

The rest of Sophie’s question was drowned in a noise like a giant piece of silk tearing. The room shook. Wizard Suliman exclaimed something and made for the door—and then had to dodge hastily. A whole crowd of screaming, wailing somethings swept through the wall beside the door, swooped across the room, and vanished through the opposite wall. They were going too fast to be seen clearly, but none of them seemed to be human. Abdullah had a blurred glimpse of multiple clawed legs, of something streaming along on no legs at all, of beings with one wild eye and of others with many eyes in clusters. He saw fanged heads, flowing tongues, flaming tails. One, moving swiftest of all, was a rolling ball of mud.

Then they were gone. The door was thrown open by an agitated apprentice. “Sir, sir! The wards are down! We couldn’t hold—”