Clariel turned around. Her attendant sending, who had silently followed her from the house, was standing two paces behind her back. It bowed, the strange face inscrutable under the cowl.

‘Oh, do go away,’ said Clariel.

It didn’t move.

‘It won’t,’ said Mogget. ‘Ordered to watch you. Guard you too, I suppose.’

‘Will it report what I say to the Abh— to my grandfather?’

‘Yes,’ said Mogget. He bent forward and suddenly scratched at the ground, clearing away some leaves and fallen acorns to the bare earth. Then, extending one claw, he scratched something in the dirt. It took Clariel a moment to understand that he was writing something. She knelt down to see it better, and briefly saw the words: Sme cn’t read.

‘Ah,’ said Clariel. She arched her eyebrows and jerked her head back a couple of times, indicating the sending behind her.

‘There’s a fungus on bread that will make you do that,’ said Mogget. ‘I believe it is curable.’

Clariel sighed and, holding her hand close to her stomach, pointed with the tip of her forefinger at the sending.

‘Oh, yes, I think that does apply to the one in question,’ said Mogget, scrabbling for a moment in the earth as if he’d spotted a tasty-looking bug, but in fact writing another message in shorthand: I can shw yu how to gt rid of them.

‘I think I’d like to look at the study in the tower,’ said Clariel. ‘I have some letters to write.’

‘After you catch me a fish, surely,’ said Mogget. ‘It’s easy enough, because of the spelled currents. The fish get drawn in around the southern end of the island. There’s a pole and hooks and such in the tower, and a sending will bring worms from the kitchen garden.’

‘I see,’ said Clariel, who saw very well that Mogget would answer no questions unless she did catch him a fish. ‘I’ll catch you a fish.’

Two hours and three long but slim silver fish that Mogget called ‘skinnerjacks’ later, they were crossing the southern lawn going back to the house when the cat suddenly stopped, ears flicking.

‘Someone’s coming,’ he said.

‘The Abhorsen?’ asked Clariel.

‘No,’ replied the cat. ‘There would be more sendings coming out. I suspect it is your lover. Belatiel.’

‘He’s not my lover,’ protested Clariel. As the actual catching of fish had only taken up some fifteen minutes of the two hours spent fishing, she had spent a lot of the time talking. Mogget was interested in everything that had happened, though every time Clariel had tried to move on to questioning him about the House and how to get out of it he’d changed the subject, apparently because the sending was listening. But she hadn’t mentioned Bel’s romantic intentions, so either the cat had read more into what she’d said, or he was just making fun of her.