An expression of unease flickered on Hilary Mould’s rotted features. Nurd picked up on it immediately.

“Ah, she didn’t mention that, did she? She didn’t tell you that she’d been cast aside by her master. We are stronger than she is, and we always have been. You’ve been tricked, Mr. Mould. When the Shadows come, your alliance with her won’t save you. If you do get eternal life out of this, you’ll spend it in nothingness with the Shadows pressing down on you, and if I were you, I’d rather have no life at all.”

Hilary Mould’s confidence was crumbling, just as his body was. He wanted to convince himself that Nurd was telling lies, but he could not. Nurd’s words had the weight of truth to them.

“She was only ever using you,” said Nurd. “That’s what she does. She’s clever and ruthless. When she’s finished using you—and that should be pretty soon, I think—she’ll cast you to the Shadows, and you’ll wish you had just toddled off and died properly years ago instead of hanging about in old shops in the hope of ruling the world someday.”

By now, Hilary Mould had no doubts left. Nurd was right.

“The engine,” said Hilary Mould as the dreadfulness of his fate became clear to him. “The engine must be turned off.”

“How?” said Nurd.

But before Hilary Mould could reply, his lower jaw dropped to the floor. He knelt to retrieve it, but his left leg shattered below the knee and he toppled sideways. Samuel ran to him. He was thinking of Crudford. If Crudford could find Mrs. Abernathy’s heart and steal it away, the force powering the engine would be gone, and the Shadows would not be able to escape from their world into this one.

“Where is the heart, Mr. Mould?” said Samuel. “Tell us, please!”

Hilary Mould had only one finger left. He slowly unbent it from his fist, but before he could point it the grotto behind him began to fall apart. Samuel barely had time to get out of the way before the heavy stones fell on Hilary Mould, turning him to dust.

Samuel’s ears rang from the sound of the clashing stones. His eyes and mouth were filled with dry matter, some of it almost certainly bits of Hilary Mould. He spat them out.

There was a thumping noise in his head: the beating of a heart that was not his own. It was almost as though Mrs. Abernathy had already entered him, just as Hilary Mould had threatened. He tried to find the source of the sound. It was coming from the group of humans and nonhumans nearby.

It was coming from inside one of them.

The others seemed to realize it at the same time as Samuel. Slowly they moved away from one another—watching, listening—before grouping together again as they narrowed down the source, until at last a single figure was left standing alone, and the identity of Mrs. Abernathy’s host was revealed.