“We know that she’s been here. The door was open and her footprint was outside. And Sebastian’s letter spoke of construction works. Down here, in the basement. There must be a doorway, then, a passage; something to connect one of these rooms to the sewers. But I looked at all the walls and can’t see evidence of any construction.” He mutters to himself, walks another thirty yards in four-step paces. “Let’s think it out. Only quick now, quick. What do we know? She has been collecting Soot. Black Soot, the darkest she can find, has scraped it off murderers, spent millions to build this sewer to get more. Well then, for what purpose? To quicken it, you say. No, not just quicken it but make it explosive. Self-perpetuating. Contagious. And not by the usual method, using the solvent produced in this factory, which is weak and does not last, but with Mowgli’s blood, two thousand two hundred cubic centimetres — four pints! — of his blood. Do I have this right? Yes? All right! The sewers will steam with rage. A black cloud like nothing anyone has seen, rising out of the ground and infecting the city. But then what? I don’t understand.”

“He kept talking about the French Revolution,” Livia answers. “Robespierre. Decimal time. The Terror.”

Charlie stops mid-step. It nearly costs him his balance.

“Is that what she’s planning? An uprising! An age of anger. Nobody working, the factories idle, the docks closed. An army of Juliuses, infecting one another, looking for food beyond the city. Marching on the manor houses.” He stands, head cocked, appalled and baffled. “But why would your mother want such a thing?”

“She’s evil.”

Charlie won’t have it. “Even evil needs reasons,” he says. “You don’t destroy the world just so.”

“Mad, then. Mother’s gone mad. Just like Father. She hates Discipline. It broke him. She thinks she’s avenging him.”

“Mad?” says Charlie. “I don’t know. When is the last time you saw your mother smoke?”

ф

They sit perplexed and passive, minutes trickling away. Thomas is aware that both Livia and Charlie are looking at him, waiting for him.

Lead us, these looks appear to say. You always have.

But Thomas is afraid to lead.