They get to a platform that sways under their weight. Danny walks with his knees bent, waves of dizziness roiling around his head. The heat doesn’t affect Gant, but Danny can still find it within himself to be pleased that Jeremiah is finding this as uncomfortable as he is. Large patches of sweat have already soaked through the big man’s jacket. His fat cheeks are red and he’s puffing like it’s hard to breathe. Jeremiah doesn’t complain, though, and he doesn’t walk like he’s scared of falling.

They climb iron stairs. Danny keeps his hands to himself. He can feel the heat through his shoes. The stairs are steep, and there are a lot of them, and Danny’s legs are trembling by the time they reach the top. He glances down at Jeremiah, who is finding the climb tough going. Good.

There’s a hut ahead. Gant walks in. With no other route open to him, Danny follows.

This hut, at least, has a solid floor. Nothing to lurch beneath him, and no grille to allow the steam from the liquid fire to billow and scald his skin. Solid walls, too. Chains hang from the high ceiling. Gant turns to him.

“What did you give me?” Danny asks.

Gant smiles. “You think you’ve been drugged. You think this place is some ghastly hallucination. You think it couldn’t possibly exist.”

“I know it can’t.”

“And yet it does,” says Gant, “so what does that say about the things you know? Does it, perhaps, say that there’s a lot more to this world than you’ve seen so far in your limited little life? There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Do you know where that is from?”

“Hamlet,” says Danny. “Everyone knows that line.”

Gant chuckles. “Not so. There are still those to whom Shakespeare is a mystery they have no interest in solving.”

Jeremiah joins them, sucking in mouthfuls of hot air like he’s going to have a heart attack at any moment. Gant observes him with a look of distaste.

“Where are we?” Danny asks.

“My home,” answers Gant. “A man’s home is his castle, is it not? And a man must be master of his domain. This is my domain, Danny my boy, and I am master over it.”

“But how can it exist? It’s not right. It’s not possible.”

Gant pulls on one of the chains, one with a hook on the end. “There are many names for it,” he says. “The easiest for you to understand would be, simply, magic.” He attaches the hook to Danny’s handcuffs, looks over to Jeremiah, who is still trying to get his breath back.

“Jeremiah,” Gant says sharply.