“Go!” Ripton coughed, gesturing with his thumb at the dumbwaiter.

“What about . . . ridge?”

“Leave him!”

“You go!”

Ripton shook his head, but when Nick crawled across to Lackridge, Ripton climbed into the dumbwaiter. The professor was a dead weight, too heavy for Nick to move without standing up. As he tried again, an unopened bottle exploded behind him, showering the back of his neck with hot glass. The smoke was getting thicker with every second, and the heat more intense.

“Get up!” Nick coughed. “You’ll die here!”

Lackridge didn’t move.

Flames licked at Nick’s back and he smelled burning hair. He could do nothing more for the professor. He had only reduced his own chances of survival. Cradling his arms around his head, Nick dived into the dumbwaiter.

He had hoped for clean air there, but it was no better. The elevator shaft was acting as a chimney, sucking up the smoke. Nick felt his throat and lungs closing up and his arms and legs growing weaker. He thrust himself through the hatch, climbed onto the roof of the dumbwaiter, and felt about for the hatch cover, slapping it down in the hope that this might stop some of the smoke. Then, coughing and spitting, he found the first missing bricks and began to climb.

He could hear Ripton somewhere up above him, coughing and swearing. But Nick wasn’t listening for Ripton. All his senses were attuned to what might be happening lower down. Would the creature come through the fire and swarm up the shaft?

The smoke did begin to thin a little as Nick climbed, but it was still thick enough for him to smash his head into Ripton’s boots after he had climbed up about forty feet. The sudden shout it provoked confirmed that Ripton had been thinking about where the creature was as well.

“Sorry!” Nick gasped. “I don’t think it’s following us.”

“There’s a door here. I’m standing on the edge of it, but I can’t slide the bloody thing— Got it!”

Light spilled into the shaft as smoke wafted out of it. Hard white gaslight. Ripton stepped through, then turned to help Nick pull himself up and over.

They were in a long whitewashed room lined from floor to ceiling with shelves and shelves of packaged food of all varieties. Tins and boxes and packets and sacks and bottles and puncheons and jars.

There was a door at the other end. It was open, and a white-clad cook’s assistant was staring at them openmouthed.

“Fire!” shouted Nick, waving his arms to clear the smoke that was billowing out fast from behind him. He started to walk forward, continuing to half shout, his voice raspy and dulled by smoke. “Fire in the cellars! Everyone needs to get out, to the . . . Which field is closest, with hay?”

“The home meadow,” croaked Ripton. He cleared his throat and tried again. “The home meadow.”

“Tell the staff to evacuate the house and assemble on the home meadow,” Nick ordered in his most commanding manner. “I will tell the guests.”