“Tempter!” said Jacob, smiling. “And yet it must be said, the family is not entirely happy with me, just now. I am out of sorts with my own times . . . so perhaps some time apart might enable the family to look on me more happily, through the kinder eyes of absence . . . So! Anything for the family, young Edwin!”

I reached out my hand, through the gateway, across the years, and Jacob took it. It was actually a shock, to be able to feel his flesh-and-blood hand in mine. I brought him through Merlin’s Glass, out of his time and into mine, and the gateway immediately snapped shut. Jacob let go my hand and looked around him, clearly shocked at the state of the chapel, gone (for him) in a moment from the tidy sanctuary he knew to the grubby, abandoned derelict of now. He started to say something . . . and the ghost of Jacob appeared out of nowhere, a fiercely glowing presence with wild eyes, hovering above us. He pointed a shaking, shrivelled hand at me, his voice howling inside my head like a damned soul.

What have you done? What have you done!

He vanished. Jacob grabbed me firmly by the arm. “What in sweet Jesu’s name was that?”

“I don’t think I’m going to tell you,” I said after a moment. “I think . . . I’m going to have to work up to that.”

I pried his fingers off my arm, and then used the Merlin Glass to open a gateway between the chapel and the old library. I called for Rafe, and he came trotting up immediately.

“This is Jacob Drood,” I said briskly. “Yes, that Jacob. I brought him forward, out of the past, to help us. I need you to look after him, bring him up to speed, tell him anything he needs to know, and no, I’m not going to answer any questions at this time. Just . . . do it, all right?”

“You just love making trouble for yourself, don’t you?” said Rafe. “Why don’t you just shoot an albatross and get it over with? Come with me . . . Jacob, and I’ll do my best to explain the unholy mess you’ve just been dropped into.”

“Ah, brave new world, that has such secrets in it,” Jacob said dryly. “It would appear the family of this time is not so different from the family I know, after all.”

I pushed him through the gateway and shut down the Glass before either of them could ask any awkward questions. I’d asked the Glass for the most suitable candidate, and it chose Jacob. So he had to be the right man for the job. He just had to be. I sighed heavily, looked round the empty chapel, and raised my voice in the dusty silence.

“All right, Jacob, you can come out now.”