She turned once more to Samuel.

“And you will be with me, Samuel: you will keep me company in my exile, and you will live with the knowledge of the hurt that you brought upon your family, your friends, and worlds beyond number because of your meddling.”

“Then take me,” said Samuel. “I’ll go with you willingly. You can do what you want with me, but spare the others. Spare all of these worlds.”

“No,” said Mrs. Abernathy.

“You can take me, too,” said Nurd. “I’ll suffer beside him.”

“You’ll suffer anyway,” said Mrs. Abernathy. “You should have listened to Mould: you’re not offering me anything that I don’t already have in my grasp.”

“But why make them all suffer because of me?” said Samuel.

“Because I want to,” said Mrs. Abernathy. “Because it gives me pleasure.”

Samuel tried to recall what Crudford had said about playing on Mrs. Abernathy’s vanity.

“But wouldn’t it display your power more forcefully if you were to hold back the Shadows, and allow so many to go on living?” said Samuel. “Isn’t there more greatness in sparing lives than taking them?”

Mrs. Abernathy swatted away the possibility as though it were a fly, and a very small fly at that.

“No,” she said. “No, it wouldn’t.”

“Frankly,” said Jolly to Angry, “even I didn’t buy that one.”

“It was a long shot,” agreed Angry. “It would be like telling us that it’s better to pay for stuff than to get it for nothing by stealing it. I mean, it might be true, but you’re not going to get anywhere by believing it.”

“You know,” said the Polite Monster to Mrs. Abernathy, shaking with the kind of suppressed rage of which only the nicest people are capable, “you really are a very, very rude—four letters, ‘ill-mannered or impolite’—demon.”

Mrs. Abernathy roared, and foul-smelling spittle shot from her jaws.

“Enough!” she said. “It begins.”

The stones from the collapsed grotto ascended slowly into the air, revealing the dusty remains of Hilary Mould, but also a very old, very battered wooden door. It hung suspended just a foot off the ground, and at its center was a single lock.

“This is the last barrier, the doorway between the Kingdom of Shadows and this world,” said Mrs. Abernathy. “It needs only the key to open it.”

Her gaze flicked dangerously from one face to the next, until it came to rest on Maria.

“You,” she said. “I feel Samuel’s fondness for you. You will provide the key.”

As she spoke, two of the tentacles on her back lashed out, wrapping themselves around Maria and lifting her off the ground.

“You are the key,” said Mrs. Abernathy, “and the key is blood.”

The surface of the door rippled. Great splinters protruded from the ancient wood, each capable of spearing a human being like an insect on a pin. The keyhole changed shape, becoming a red-lipped mouth waiting to be fed. The last of the stars disappeared from above their heads as the Shadows merged into a single mass of blackness, a great face composed of many entities in one, and galaxies were swallowed in its jaws.