Strange seemed to concede that this was a reasonable question. He thought for a moment. “I suppose it is because I have been many things since last we met. I have been trees and rivers and hills and stones. I have spoken to stars and earth and wind. One cannot be the conduit through which all English magic flows and still be oneself. I would have been angry, you say?”

Mr Norrell nodded.

Strange smiled his old, ironic smile. “Then be comforted! I dare say I shall be so again. In time.”

“And you have done all this just to thwart me?” asked Mr Norrell.

“To thwart you?” said Strange, in astonishment. “No! I have done this to save my wife!”

There was a short silence during which time Mr Norrell found it impossible to meet Strange’s eye. “What do you want from me?” he asked in a low voice.

“Only what I have always wanted – your help.”

“To break the enchantments?”

“Yes.”

Mr Norrell considered this for a moment. “The hundredth anniversary of an enchantment is often most auspicious,” he said. “There are several rites and procedures …”

“Thank you,” said Strange, with more than a tinge of his old sarcastic manner, “but I believe I was hoping for something a little more immediate in its effect.”

“The death of the enchanter puts an end to all such contracts and enchantments, but …”

“Ah, yes! Quite!” interrupted Strange, eagerly. “The death of the enchanter! I thought of it often in Venice. With all of English magic at my disposal there were so many ways I could have killed him. Sent him hurtling down from great heights. Burned him with bolts of lightning. Raised up mountains and crushed him beneath them. Had it been my freedom at stake, I would have certainly attempted it. But it was not my freedom – it was Arabella’s – and if I had tried and failed – if I had been killed – then her fate would have been sealed forever. So I set to thinking some more. And I thought how there was one man in all the world – in all the worlds that ever were – who would know how to defeat my enemy. One man who could advise me what I ought to do. I realized the time had come to speak to him.”

Mr Norrell looked more alarmed than ever. “Oh! But I must tell you that I no longer regard myself as your superior. My reading has been a great deal more extensive than yours, it is true, and I will give you what help I can, but I can offer you no security that I will be any more successful than you.”

Strange frowned. “What? What are you talking about? I do not mean you! I mean John Uskglass. I want your help in summoning John Uskglass.”