“We should test you,” said Maximilian. “There should be a series of tests at the back of this edition, I think. Oh yes, here we go. Cleric’s test. Brilliant. All right. What is the thing that links all religions?”

“A belief in what is good?”

“Yep. More or less. Um . . . Name a type of incense.”

“Sandalwood.” Wolf frowned. “I have literally no idea how I know that,” he said. “How weird.”

“Oooh, I love sandalwood,” said Raven dreamily, looking up from the pager. “Sandalwood and rose.”

“What’s your favorite color?”

“Blue.”

“Excellent! Do you like silence?”

“Yes.”

“Being on your own?”

“Yes.”

“Do you ever cheat or lie?”

“No.”

“Well, there you go,” said Maximilian. “You’re a cleric!”

“A warrior cleric,” corrected Wolf.

“Hmmm. Well, let’s hope your cleric’s skills will turn out to be useful in some way. You’re already useful as a warrior, of course.”

“I just want to find my sister,” said Wolf.

“Maybe you should pray for her,” suggested Raven. “No, don’t both look at me like that! Surely a cleric would be able to do things with prayer. I’m sure it says something like that in the Repertory. I do witch’s prayers, sometimes, although they’re different. But they can’t be that different.”

“It’s got to be worth a try,” said Wolf. “Except I don’t even know how to start.”

Just then there was a knock at the door. It was Odile telling them that Raven’s mum had come to pick her up.

“I’d better go too,” said Wolf.

“Why don’t you stay here?” said Odile. “Have the spare room.”

“Are you sure, Nurse Underwood?”

“You look like you could do with a warm night in a real house,” she said mysteriously.

How was it that mothers always knew so many things? And even about other people’s children, too.

“Ouch!” exclaimed Terrence Deer-Hart, as Lady Tchainsaw pricked him yet again. “Be careful where you put those pins!”

“Your robes must be ready for Midwinter,” said Lady Tchainsaw. She rolled her Rs powerfully, more than any actual Russian would ever do. Perhaps she missed home. Or perhaps she wasn’t even Russian, and that was why she was overdoing it. Her identity as an avant-garde poet was ever changing, after all.

“Oh well,” said Terrence, “at least this is better than my last outfit.”

“We will never speak of the other outfit ever again,” said Lady Tchainsaw. “There.” She made another adjustment. “You do not look too dreadful, which is a surprise. The master will be pleased.”

Terrence turned and looked at himself in the antique full-length mirror that took up most of one wall in Lady Tchainsaw’s rooms in the east wing of the university. He now resembled many of the other objects around him: old, rare and really quite evil. As well as a small cabinet full of dusty, enchanted-looking marionettes that rivaled the most terrifying specimens owned by the Puppet Man, Lady Tchainsaw had an impressive, although highly unnerving, collection of stuffed dead animals. These peered at Terrence in the mirror imploringly, their ghostly eyes all saying, Why did you kill me? and, in some cases, When you are asleep I will come to take revenge. . . .