“We’re lucky to have this one, Eddie,” Jacob said kindly. “The Hungry Gods will be destroyed, the world will be saved. We don’t really have a right to expect any more.” He looked at Giles. “There’s even enough spare temporal energy to send you home, boy. All the way back to the future. Just stand by the box, and trust me. Close your eyes, if it helps.” He turned back to me. “Good-bye, Eddie. You always were a good friend. And the son I never had . . . Don’t stop giving the family hell, just because I’m not around to prompt you.”

“Good-bye, Jacob,” I said. “I wish . . .”

“I know,” he said.

He disappeared, and Ivor’s defiant steam whistle sounded again, striking right through the raised, awful clamour of the Hungry Gods. The Time Train was plummeting through the incandescent sky, trailing tachyon steam as it headed remorselessly for the living mountains. Giles held out his hand for the Deplorable End, and I gave him the box. He hefted it once and smiled briefly.

“Good-bye, Eddie. Good-bye, Molly. I’ve enjoyed my time with you. It’s been . . . interesting.”

“Good-bye, Giles,” I said. “And wherever you go, and wherever you end up, remember, you’re still family.”

I took Molly by the arm and headed for the gateway. It snapped shut before me, gone in a moment. And Molly jerked her arm out of my hand. She laughed exultantly, her face and her body no longer her own again.

“You’ll never get out of here! We have shut down the gateway; you’re trapped here with us! Jacob will never destroy this world as long as you’re still here!”

“Of course he will,” I said. “He’s a Drood.”

“Yes,” said Giles. “Nothing matters but family, honour, and duty. I understand that now.”

The Time Train was dropping fast, hammering towards the surface, accelerating all the while. Wild energies exploded around the steam engine as the living mountains struggled to slow or stop it. But wherever Ivor had been, he’d become so strong that even the Hungry Gods couldn’t touch him. He howled down out of the sky, and I swear I saw Jacob and Jay leaning out the black cab, laughing and cheering like schoolboys.

There had to be a way out of this. There had to be a way. We couldn’t have come this far, just to die now. I pushed Molly into Giles’s arms, and he held her securely while she fought him and snarled curses and threats. I searched my pockets with both hands, looking for something, anything, that could help. I was never short of gadgets; the Armourer saw to that. But nothing I had on me could help me here. I should have asked Uncle Jack for something special before I left, but he was always saying I never used what he gave me anyway . . .