Maria kissed Samuel gently on the lips.

“There,” she said.

“Ah,” said Samuel.

“The light dawns,” said Angry.

“It’s like watching a caveman discover fire,” said Jolly.

“Now,” said Maria, “to return to the original question: what were you and Nurd whispering about?”

Samuel could taste Maria on his lips. His head was swimming. It was such a shame that he was either going to be killed or the Multiverse was about to come to an end, because he realized he had always loved Maria. He definitely didn’t want to die now, and he rather hoped that the Multiverse might be saved without his death being part of the bargain, but then he also understood that there really is no sacrifice, and no bravery, unless there is something to be lost.

He put his hand against Maria’s cheek.

“Nurd and I are going to offer ourselves to Mrs. Abernathy in order to save the Multiverse,” he said.

“Over my dead body,” said Maria.

“That,” said a voice lubricated by poisons, “can probably be arranged. Oh, and ho-ho-ho.”

62. The word vertigo is frequently used, incorrectly, to describe the fear of heights, but vertigo is a spinning sensation felt when someone is actually standing still. The correct term for a fear of heights is acrophobia. Good grief, I sound like that grammarian bloke Dominique Bouhours, and he was really annoying. Sorry.

63. Please see footnote 16 in Chapter Five, and then substitute “me” for “you,” and “you” for “me” in the sentence above.

64. This is quite an insult, but only really works on a girl who has tried to steal another girl’s boyfriend. If you’re a bloke and you call someone a Jezebel, you’ll just be looked at oddly.

XXXV

In Which We End on a Cliffhanger

SAMUEL AND MARIA HAD seen photographs of Hilary Mould, but had obviously never imagined meeting him in the flesh, not that they had lost a lot of sleep over it. Even in life Hilary Mould had not been a very handsome man. He had fish eyes, a misshapen nose, and a chin so weak that a small child could have taken it in a fight. What little hair he had stuck up at odd angles from his head like clumps of bristles on an old, worn paintbrush, and his ears stood out at right angles from his head like car doors that had been jammed open. He was also so pale and sickly that he resembled a corpse that had recently been dug up and then forgotten about.

In a way, this should have meant that actual death was unlikely to make him any less appealing than he already was, but anyone hoping that might be the case would have been sorely disappointed. Hilary Mould now looked worse than ever, and his name seemed to suit him even more than it had in life since he was literally moldy: something unpleasant and green was growing on what was left of his face, and he appeared to be at least 30 percent down in the finger department. His skin had retreated from his fingernails, making them appear disturbingly long, and it was possible to see the tendons working through the holes in his cheeks as his jaws moved. His big eyes had turned entirely black, and wisps of darkness hung like smoke around his lips as he spoke. The fact that he was dressed as Father Christmas did not help matters.