Hilary Mould grimaced in frustration. This wasn’t going at all according to plan.

“Mister,” said Dozy again.

“Look,” said Hilary Mould, “please let me finish. I have a lot to get through.”

He fumbled in another pocket and extracted a tattered, folded sheet of paper. He started trying to unfold it, but he immediately ran into trouble due to a lack of fingers.

“Need a hand?” said a dwarf voice.

Hilary Mould didn’t rise to the bait. He kept his temper, managed to get the paper open, and checked his notes.

“Um,” he muttered to himself. “Yes, ‘waiting a long time for this day’—done. Laugh sinisterly. Move on to description of occult engine, tell them about ruling the world, laugh again in an evil way, hand over to . . . Okay, fine. Right.”

He cleared his throat.

“Aha-ha-ha-ha!” He laughed.

“Mister,” said Dozy.

“WHAT? What do you want this time?”

“Do you wear glasses?”

Hilary Mould looked confused.

“Sometimes,” he said.

“Well,” said Dozy, “I hate to break it to you, but you might have trouble with that in future.”

“Why?”

“Your right ear just fell off.”

Hilary Mould reached up to check. The dwarf was right. His right ear was no more. He saw it resting by his right shoe.

“Oh, blast!” he said.

He didn’t want to leave it lying around. Someone might step on it. His hand, though, was barely managing to hang on to his notes.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but would somebody mind picking that up for me?”

Jolly obliged.

“I’ll get the other one while I’m down here,” he said, for Hilary Mould’s left ear, clearly pining for its friend, had detached itself from his head and headed south.

“Do you want me to put them with your hand?” asked Jolly.

“If you wouldn’t mind,” said Hilary Mould.

“Not at all.”

Jolly squeezed the ears into Hilary Mould’s pocket. Unfortunately, the pocket was already taken up with the hand, so Jolly had to use a little force to get the ears in there as well. He distinctly felt something snap and crumble as he did so: more than one something, as it happened.

“Do be careful with them,” said Hilary Mould. “I’m sure there’s a way of fitting them on again.”

“Don’t you worry,” said Jolly, discreetly using the end of Hilary Mould’s jacket to wipe bits of crushed ear from his fingers, “you’ll look a whole new man when they stick those back on.”

Jolly rejoined the others.

“He’ll never wear glasses again,” he whispered to Angry. “And I don’t know how he’s going to wind his watch.”

Hilary Mould was worried. He had just discovered one of the dangers of walling oneself up in a basement for a very long time: rot tends to set in. Even with a hint of Shadow essence coursing through his remains, he was in very real danger of falling apart entirely before the real business of the evening was concluded.

“I suppose you’re wondering why I created my engine,” he said.