“I sort of woke up on the moor near Northlake in the middle of a blizzard,” said Wolf. “With this.” He held out an object to Maximilian. It was a man’s ring with a blue stone set in ornately crafted silver. It looked almost like a small shield that you’d wear on your finger. There were patterns on the ring that looked vaguely Celtic. And words, too, in a language Maximilian didn’t understand. They’d have to get Effie to translate them. When Maximilian took the ring from Wolf it felt heavier than he’d expected. In fact, it was so heavy he had to put it down on the bed.

“It’s a boon,” said Maximilian. “And it doesn’t like me. We’ll look at it properly in a minute. But what happened after all that stuff about the AI—which, I might add, was extremely interesting. In fact, I might need you to tell me the entire story again, and soon. I’ve been making a small study of the early history of computing in my spare time. But anyway . . . ?”

“It was a bit confusing,” said Wolf. “The lights were flickering more and more often, and Aizik kept saying ‘It does not compute’ over and over again. There was an explosion a few levels down, smoke, sprinklers, shouting. . . . I started running. And then I woke up on the moors, like I said. I had my knapsack with all my belongings, and, obviously, this ring.”

“Have you put it on yet?” asked Maximilian.

“No. I’m a bit scared. I mean, I’m definitely not scared of anything usually, but . . . I wanted to show it to you first. You know about magic rings. Remember when Effie put hers on for the first time and almost died? I want to know what this is before I start messing around with it. I also want to know how I got from halfway up a weird building in the remote Borders in the middle of a raging fire to the moors near here.”

“You completed the book,” said Maximilian.

“You what?” said Wolf.

“You know you’ve just had a Last Reader experience, don’t you?”

There was a long pause, while Wolf thought about this.

“Like you and Effie?” he said.

“Yep. I didn’t realize it had happened to me at first either. I thought it was all real. What book was it? I mean, you must have been reading a book when it started happening. That’s how it works.”

“But I haven’t been reading any book. I’ve been in the Borders, looking for Natasha.”

“Before that. I mean, I think that was all part of the book. The question is, which book. When did you last pick up a book?”

“Night before last, maybe. Yeah, I got out of bed to read this weird book called The Answer.”

“Where did you get it?”