He returned to his writing table, and was just about to pick up his pen again to edit what he’d written, when there came a knock at the door. ‘Could you get that, Merlin?’ he asked the owl. No reply forthcoming, he went and opened it.

The door was slammed out of his grip.

Something dark launched itself through the gap and landed on his chest, pinning him to the floor.

‘Silence!’ it hissed.

Smith frantically reached for a poker that stood by the fireplace, but the lithe dark figure snapped a hand out. It caught Smith’s fingers and wrapped them in its own gloved fist.

It wrenched Smith’s left hand up to face level and the little schoolteacher caught a glimpse of glittering eyes and white teeth under the brim of the hat.

‘Pleased to meet you, human!’ snarled Serif. Then he bit the end off Smith’s little finger.

Benny and Constance sat in the little back bedroom of Alexander’s rooms above the museum. A heavy curtain hung over the small window. When Alexander had popped out to make the tea, they’d heard footsteps going downstairs.

Unfortunately, the window was on the wrong side of the building to see who might be leaving.

‘I’m getting positively used to hiding,’ Constance sighed, leaning her head on Benny’s shoulder. ‘I wish, sometimes, that I could change the way I look, just magically transform into a bird, or a cat. Wouldn’t that be wonderful, to change what you were just by thinking about it? Wouldn’t you like to do that?’

‘Not really.’ Benny was wondering if this place had a bath. The mud was dropping off her and getting the bedclothes dirty already. ‘I just want to be me and do that as well as I can.’

‘But you could get into any dress you liked or be a man for a day and go out carousing.’ She started to twirl the ends of Benny’s hair absent-mindedly. ‘You could do whatever you wanted. This sullied flesh could melt and resolve itself into a dew.’

Benny rubbed her brow, wondering why everything in her life seemed to happen at exactly the wrong time. She plucked Constance’s hand from her hair and patted it comfortingly. ‘That’s a lovely idea, but it doesn’t help me at the moment. Right now, I need to find this object I’m looking for.’

‘Well, if you know who’s got it, then in the morning you can just go and get it off them, can’t you? I know all the back ways and side roads. With my help, it won’t be hard at all.’

‘I suspect it may not be as simple as that, but, yes, I’ll meet you in the morning and you can give me some idea of the territory.’

Alexander bustled back in with glee, handing them each a mug of steaming tea.