“She isn’t,” I replied. “Her timidity will end up getting her killed. We had a run-in with a grammasite inside Lord of the Flies while dealing with the glasses problem, and she decided to give the Verbisoid the benefit of the doubt and a very large hug.”

“What type of Verbisoid? Intransitive?”

I shook my head sadly. “Nope. Ditransitive.”

Bradshaw whistled low. He hadn’t been kidding over recruitment troubles or Senator Jobsworth’s involvement. Even I knew there were at least three totally unsuitable candidates Jobsworth was pressuring us to “reappraise.”

“She’s lucky to have a single verb left in her body,” said Bradshaw after a pause. “Give her the full three days before firing her, yes? It has to be by the book, in case she tries to sue us.”

I assured him I would and moved back to my desk, where Thursday5 was sitting on the floor in the lotus position. I had a quick rummage through my case notes, which were now stacked high on my desk. In a rash moment I’d volunteered to look at Jurisfiction “cold cases,” thinking that there would only be three or four. As it turned out, there were over a hundred infractions of sorts, ranging from random plot fluctuations in the Gormenghast trilogy to the inexplicable and untimely death of Charles Dickens, who had once lived long enough to finish Edwin Drood. I did as much as I had time for, which wasn’t a lot.

“Right,” I said, pulling on my jacket and grabbing my bag, “we’re off. Stick close to me and do exactly as I say—even if that means killing grammasites. It’s them or us.”

“Them or us,” repeated Thursday5 halfheartedly, slinging her felt handbag over her shoulder in exactly the same way as I did. I stopped for a moment and stared at my desk. It had been rearranged.

“Thursday?” I said testily. “Have you been doing feng shui on my desk again?”

“It was more of a harmonization, really,” she replied somewhat sheepishly.

“Well, don’t.”

“Why not?”

“Just…just don’t.”

Training Day

The BookWorld was a minefield for the unwary, so apprenticeships were essential. We’d lost more agents through poor training than were ever taken by grammasites. A foot wrong in the imaginatively confusing world of fiction could see the inexperienced Jurisfiction Cadet mispelled, conjugated or reduced to text. My tutor had been the first Miss Havisham, and I like to think it was her wise counsel that had allowed me to survive as long as I did. Many cadets didn’t. The average life expectancy for a raw recruit in BookWorld was about forty-seven chapters.