I looked up and saw that the hole in the clouds was already healing itself, and within a few minutes the text would start to sink. I opened the pistol and reloaded, but I didn’t need to fire a second time. On the horizon and heading toward me was a small dot that gradually grew bigger and bigger until it was overhead, then circled twice before it slowed to a stop, hovering in the air right next to the lifeboat. The driver rolled down his window and consulted a clipboard.

“Are you Ms. Next?” he asked, which was mildly surprising, to say the least.

“Yes, I am.”

“And you ordered me?”

“Yes, yes I did.”

“Well, you better get in, then.”

I was still in mild shock at the turn of events but quickly gathered my thoughts and my belongings and climbed into the yellow vehicle. It was dented and dirty and had the familiar TransGenre Taxis logo on the door. I’d never been so glad to see a cab in my entire life.

I settled myself into the backseat as the driver switched on the meter, turned to me with a grin and said, “Had the devil’s job finding you, darling—where to?”

It was a good point. I thought for a moment. Pride and Prejudice was definitely in dire peril, but if the Now got any shorter, then all books were in danger—and a lot more besides.

“Longfellow,” I said, “and make it snappy. I think we’re going to have some unwanted company.”

The cabbie raised his eyebrows, pressed on the accelerator, and we were soon scooting across the sea at a good rate of knots.

He caught my eye in the rearview mirror. “Are you in some kind of trouble?”

“The worst kind,” I replied, thinking that I was going to have to trust this cabbie to do the right thing. “I’m subject to a shoot-to-kill order from the CofG, but it’s bullshit. I’m a Jurisfiction agent, and I could seriously do with some help right now.”

“Bureaucrats!” he snorted disparagingly, then thought hard for a moment and added, “Next, Next—you wouldn’t be Thursday Next, would you?”

“That’s me.”

“I like your books a lot. Especially the early ones with all the killing and gratuitous sex.”

“I’m not like that. I’m—”

“Whoa!”

The cabbie swerved abruptly, and I was thrown violently to the other side of the taxi. I looked out the rear window and could see a figure in a long black dress hit the sea in a cascade of foam. They were onto me already.

“That was strange,” said the cabbie, “but I could have sworn that was a fifty-something, creepy-looking house keeper dressed entirely in black.”

“It was a Danverclone,” I said. “There’ll be more.”

He clicked down the central locking and turned to stare at me. “You’ve really pissed someone off good and proper, haven’t you?”