“Thirty-three seconds,” said Spike, who had put a stopwatch on him, “and about fifty-five percent opacity.” He flicked through a small book of tables he had with him. “Hmm,” he said at last, “almost certainly a trivisitation. You’ve got him one more time. He’ll be down at fifteen to twenty percent opacity and will only be around for about fifteen seconds.”

“Then I could miss him?”

“No,” said Spike with a smile, “he appeared to you twice out of twice. The final appearance will be to you, too. Just have a proper question ready for him when you next come here—Mycroft’s memory being what it is, you can’t rely on him remembering what he came back for. It’s up to you.”

“Thanks, Spike,” I said as I closed the door of the workshop. “I owe you.”

Tuesday and I were home in a few minutes. The house felt warm and comfy, and there was the smell of cooking that embraced me like an old friend.

“Hi, darling!” I called out. Landen stopped his typing and came out of the office to give me a hug.

“How was work?” he asked.

I thought of what I’d been doing that day. Of firing and not firing my drippy alter ego, of a Superreader loose somewhere in the BookWorld, of Goliath’s unwelcome intrusion and of Mycroft as a ghost. Then there was the return of Felix8, the Minotaur, and my bag of Welsh cash. The time for truth was now. I had to tell him.

“I…I had to do a stair carpet over in Baydon. Hell on earth; the treads were all squiffy, none of the stair rods would fit, and Spike and I spent the whole afternoon on it—how’s the book going?”

He kissed me on the forehead and tousled Tuesday’s hair affectionately, then took me by the hand and led me into the kitchen, where there was a stew on the stove.

“Kind of okay, I guess,” he replied, stirring the dinner, “but nothing really spectacular.”

“No ideas?” I prompted. “An odd character, perhaps?”

“No—I was mostly working on pace and atmosphere.”

This was strange. I’d specifically told Scampton-Tappett to do his best. I had a sudden thought.

“What book are you working on, sweetheart?”

“The Mews of Doom.”

Aha.

“I thought you said you’d be rewriting Bananas for Edward?”

“I got bored with it. Why do you ask?”

“No reason. Where’s Friday?”

“In his room. I made him have a shower, so he’s in a bit of a snot.”

“Plock.”

“A clean snot is better than a dirty snot I suppose. And Jenny?”

“Watching TV.”

I called out, “Hey, Jenny!” but there was no answer.

“Plock.”

“She’s upstairs in her room.”

I looked at the hall clock. We still had a half hour until we had to go to the ChronoGuard’s career-advisory presentation.

“PLOCK!”

“Yes, yes, hello, Pickwick—how’s this?”