The wind died away. The bell above the stable ceased to ring.

Mr Norrell breathed a long sigh of relief that it was over. Strange was standing with his arms crossed, deep in thought, staring at the floor.

“What did you make of that?” asked Mr Norrell. “The last was by far the worst. I thought for a moment it was an eye.”

“It was an eye,” said Strange.

“But what could it belong to? Some horror or monster, I suppose! Most unsettling!”

“It was monstrous,” agreed Strange. “Though not quite in the way you imagine. It was a raven’s eye.”

“A raven’s eye! But it filled the whole window!”

“Yes. Either the raven was immensely large or …”

“Or?” quavered Mr Norrell.

Strange gave a short, uncheerful laugh. “Or we were ridiculously small! Pleasant, is it not, to see oneself as others see one? I said I wanted John Uskglass to look at me and I think, for a moment he did. Or at least one of his lieutenants did. And in that moment you and I were smaller than a raven’s eye and presumably as insignificant. Speaking of John Uskglass, I do not suppose that we know where he is?”

Mr Norrell sat down at the silver dish and began to work. After five minutes or so of patient labour, he said, “Mr Strange! There is no sign of John Uskglass – nothing at all. But I have looked for Lady Pole and Mrs Strange. Lady Pole is in Yorkshire and Mrs Strange is in Italy. There is no shadow of their presence in Faerie. Both are completely disenchanted!”

There was a silence. Strange turned away abruptly.

“It is more than a little odd,” continued Mr Norrell in a tone of wonder. “We have done everything we set out to do, but how we did it, I do not pretend to understand. I can only suppose that John Uskglass simply saw what was amiss and stretched out his hand to put it right! Unfortunately, his obligingness did not extend to freeing us from the Darkness. That remains.”

Mr Norrell paused. This then was his destiny! – a destiny full of fear, horror and desolation! He sat patiently for a few moments in expectation of falling prey to some or all of these terrible emotions, but was forced to conclude that he felt none of them. Indeed, what seemed remarkable to him now were the long years he had spent in London, away from his library, at the beck and call of the Ministers and the Admirals. He wondered how he had borne it.

“I am glad I did not recognize the raven’s eye for what it was,” he said cheerfully, “or I believe I would have been a good deal frightened!”

“Indeed, sir,” said Strange hoarsely. “You were fortunate there! And I believe I am cured of wanting to be looked at! Henceforth John Uskglass is welcome to ignore me for as long as he pleases.”

“Oh, indeed!” agreed Mr Norrell. “You know, Mr Strange, you really should try to rid yourself of the habit of wishing for things. It is a dangerous thing in a magician!” He began a long and not particularly interesting story about a fourteenth-century magician in Lancashire who had often made idle wishes and had caused no end of inconvenience in the village where he lived, accidentally turning the cows into clouds and the cooking pots into ships, and causing the villagers to speak in colours rather than words – and other such signs of magical chaos.