“Aren’t you staying here? For the house party?”

“Don’t be silly! I can’t abide house parties of any kind. I’m staying at the Golden Sheaf. Excellent hotel, not too far away. I often go there to get through some serious confidential reading. Place has got its own golf course, too. Thought I might go round tomorrow. Enjoy yourself!”

Nicholas hardly caught the last two words as his door was flung open and he was assisted out by Edward’s personal bodyguard. He blinked in the afternoon sunlight, no longer filtered through the smoked glass of the car’s windows. A few seconds later, his bags were deposited at his feet; then the Chief Minister’s cavalcade started up again and rolled out the drive as quickly as it had arrived, the Army trucks leaving considerable ruts in the gravel.

“Mr. Sayre?”

Nicholas looked around. A top-hatted footman was picking up his bags, but it was another man who had spoken. A balding, burly individual in a dark blue suit, his hair cut so short it was practically a monkish tonsure. Everything about him said policeman, either active or recently retired.

“Yes, I’m Nicholas Sayre.”

“Welcome to Dorrance Hall, sir. My name is Hedge—”

Nicholas recoiled from the offered hand and nearly fell over the footman. Even as he regained his balance, he realized that the man had said Hodge and then followed it up with a second syllable.

Hodgeman. Not Hedge.

Hedge the necromancer was finally, completely, and utterly dead. Lirael and the Disreputable Dog had defeated him, and Hedge had gone beyond the Ninth Gate. He couldn’t come back. Nick knew he was safe from him, but that knowledge was purely intellectual. Deep inside him, the name of Hedge was linked irrevocably with an almost primal fear.

“Sorry,” gasped Nick. He straightened up and shook the man’s hand. “Ankle gave way on me. You were saying?”

“Hodgeman is my name. I am an assistant to Mr. Dorrance. The other guests do not arrive till later, so Mr. Dorrance thought you might like a tour of the grounds.”

“Um, certainly,” replied Nick. He fought back a sudden urge to look around to see who might be listening and, as he started up the steps, resisted the temptation to slink from shadow to shadow just like a spy in a moving picture.

“The house was originally built in the time of the last Trouin-Durville Pretender, about four hundred years ago, but little of the original structure remains. Most of the current house was built by Mr. Dorrance’s grandfather. The best feature is the library, which was the great hall of the old house. Shall we start there?”

“Thank you,” replied Nicholas. Mr. Hodgeman’s turn as a tour guide was quite convincing. Nicholas wondered if the man had to do it often for casual visitors, as part of what Uncle Edward would call “misdirection.”

The library was very impressive. Hodgeman closed the double doors behind them as Nick stared up at the high dome of the ceiling, which was painted to create the illusion of a storm at sea. It was quite disconcerting to look up at the waves and the tossing ships and the low scudding clouds. Below the dome, every wall was covered by tiers of shelves stretching up twenty or even twenty-five feet from the floor. Ladders ran on rails around the library, but no one was using them. The library was silent; two crescent-shaped couches in the center were empty. The windows were heavily curtained with velvet drapes, but the gas lanterns above the shelves burned very brightly. The place looked like there should be people reading in it, or sorting books, or something. It did not have the dark, dusty air of a disused library.