“Do you know what’s happening?” she asked Nurd.

“The stars are going out,” he said. “There’s a darkness approaching. Don’t you feel it? It’s as though the shadows are becoming deeper.”

“Not just that,” said Brian. “They’ve developed a life of their own. I should know. I was chased by one.”

“Who is that, and why is he shaking?” said Nurd.

“His name is Brian,” said Maria. “He made the tea, so according to Professor Hilbert this is all his fault.”

“Hello, Brian,” said Nurd. “Perhaps you should stop making tea. You should probably stop drinking it, too. You might not shake so much.”

He returned his attention to Maria.

“Where were we?”

“The darkness, and the shadows. Is it the Great Malevolence?”

“No, I don’t think so. It doesn’t feel like his work. It’s blacker.”

“Whatever is causing it, it lives in the shop,” said Maria. “Wreckit & Sons is at the heart of some kind of supernatural engine designed by the architect Hilary Mould.”

“It’s also a trap,” said Nurd. “It drew in Samuel, and I know that Dan and the dwarfs were given jobs there. It would have taken Wormwood and me as well, but Samuel told us not to go. He didn’t think it would be safe for us.”

“So it wanted Samuel, and Dan and the dwarfs,” said Maria. “It also wanted you and Wormwood, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Sergeant Rowan and Constable Peel are in there, too. Someone springs to mind.”

“Mrs. Abernathy,” said Nurd. “But I saw her being torn apart. I felt it happen. We all did. She’s just atoms scattered throughout the Multiverse now. And even if she was involved, she doesn’t have this kind of power. She can’t darken universes.”

From somewhere at the level of Nurd’s knee, something went glop.

“Evening, all,” said a small gelatinous being, raising his hat in greeting. “My name is Crudford, Esq., and I think I may be able to answer some questions for you.

“And by the way, is it just me, or can everyone else hear what sounds like a big heart beating?”

• • •

Crudford had not headed directly to Earth. After he’d glimpsed the Shadows above Biddlecombe, his first act had been to take a closer look at them. What he saw confirmed his worst fears: there were faces in the gloom, faces that had never been glimpsed before because the place from which the Shadows came was a kingdom of utter darkness. The Shadows were blind—what good were eyes when there was nothing to see?—but like so many other creatures that lived without light, their hearing was very, very sensitive. They had been listening to the sounds of the Multiverse for almost as long as it had been in existence. They believed that they were the true owners of the Multiverse, for before the Multiverse there was nothing, and they were as close to nothing as one could find. They hated the light, and all that dwelt in it. They even hated the Great Malevolence, and all who resided in Hell, for in Hell, too, there was light, even if it was the light of red fires. The only thing that had saved the Multiverse from the Shadows was the fact that their realm was sealed off from every other: they were prisoners inside their own Kingdom, for the Multiverse had ways of protecting itself.⁵²