‘You know what I was saying about fingers, Alex?’ Benny murmured. ‘Well, I’m willing to bet I know whose pie that one ended up in…’

‘What did you think of her?’

‘She’s fine.’

‘Nice?’

‘Fine.’

Timothy was walking through the orchard where he’d found the Pod, tossing the thing from hand to hand. He was seeing all sorts of strange things today, like those two people carrying slabs of metal like tortoises. He was starting to think about sleep and warmth. His night on the tree had certainly changed him, but he still wanted somewhere warm to spend the night. Could he go back to the school dormitory? He had nothing to fear but words, after all, and he’d found out how he could deal with that now. This Pod had done it, changed him to the point where he was like Sherlock Holmes and Jack Harkaway rolled into one. But what was he supposed to do now? Fight crime? Explore the world? Were there others like him?

He noticed an owl sitting on a branch, looking balefully down at him. ‘What would you do, Mr Owl?’

The owl leapt from the branch in a flutter of wings. Timothy spun on his heel and saw a figure crouched behind a tree trunk. Something made a noise like a catapult.

He grabbed the Pod out of the air where he’d thrown it. A metal spar bounced off the tree behind him and spun back in the direction it had come. Timothy ran, zig-zagging through the trees. Silent blue lightning struck giddily around his heels, sending clods of earth flying.

A roaring figure burst from the bushes and sprinted after Timothy, tearing through the branches as the boy kept just ahead.

Timothy glanced over his shoulder, and dived into a thicket.

Greeneye had only lost sight of the boy for a moment when he ran into the clearing. He looked around, astonished. No sign of him.

The others were quick behind him. August stared at the scanner in his hand. ‘I don’t believe this! The emissions have ceased! The Pod knows we’re after it, that’s the only explanation!’

‘He’s here,’ Greeneye rumbled, looking slowly around the clearing. ‘He’s hiding.’

Tim stared at his pursuers from behind a pair of apple trees. It was fortunate for him that the estate let the orchard get so overgrown. These were his enemies, then.

Something inside him suggested a dizzy idea, to get captured deliberately, but then he saw the curved knife that one of them, a short, bearded man, was slapping against a leather wrist-band, and repressed the urge.

Aphasia released her balloon. ‘Hunt,’ she told it. ‘Kill. Don’t eat.’

The balloon rose into the centre of the clearing and hovered, spinning on its axis.

‘We are so close,’ whispered Serif. ‘We cannot lose him now.’