The ancient sailor, as surprised as I am by all this, clutches at his face with both hand and hook, letting go of the window frame.

And he falls.

I can’t turn away, can’t not look as the man plunges down, down, down, and shatters into a great cloud of swirling vapour and ice particles on the snowy cobbles below.

As the mist whirls away to nothing, I see someone standing there, just beyond the empty man-shaped crater of snow: Sebastian Eels, looking up at us, fury on his face.

And still holding his harpoon gun.

“Now!” shouts Vi, and she runs at the gap to the next house. Without pausing, she jumps. She lands, and her feet slide. Leaning forward into the tiles, she braces against the guttering and stops. “Herbie, come on!”

I look down again.

Sebastian Eels raises his harpoon gun and takes aim.

I don’t even have time to straighten my cap. I run at the gap and jump.

It’s as I’m sailing through the frosty air, high above the town of Eerie-on-Sea, that I see the harpoon hit Violet.

SILVER-TIPPED

I DON’T SHOUT. I don’t even say the bad word. I’m too shocked. Somehow, I land on the roof and brace myself on autopilot. The only thing I can see, the only thing I can focus on, is Violet falling back against the roof tiles, the harpoon sticking out of her chest.

“No, no, no…” I start yammering. “Violet, no!”

I grab the harpoon and pull it out. There’s no blood, but I put my hand on her chest and push down hard before any can start gushing.

“What are you doing?” Violet looks at me, dazed.

I let go, expecting my hands to come away crimson and dripping, but there is still no blood. “Violet, stay calm, I can get you to Dr Thalassi, he can do something, they can do amazing things these days, doctors, and…”

Violet reaches into her coat. She pulls out the blue-green volume she was dispensed by the mermonkey. Its cover is pierced with a neat triangular hole, right through the second “a” in Malamander. She turns it over, and we see a small bulge where the harpoon nearly, but not quite, punctured through the other side.

“If this book had been a page shorter,” says Vi, staring, “I wouldn’t have lived to finish it.”

I’m still holding the harpoon. I see it trembling in my hand. I look down to where Eels was standing, but the man is no longer outside his house.

“He’s probably coming up the stairs for a closer shot,” says Vi, pulling herself up. “Come on!”

“Come on where?” I say.

But before Violet can reply, there’s a miaow! from the apex of the roof.

“Erwin!”

And sure enough, the cat is already sitting there, looking only slightly tousled after his encounter with the Boathook Man.