I answered lots more questions regarding the SuperHoop match, and when I decided enough was enough, I asked Landen to take me home.

We drove towards home in the Speedster, Landen driving and Friday in a baby seat in the back, right next to Pickwick, who didn’t want to be left alone now that Alan had gone.

“Land?”

“Mmm?”

“Did you ever think it odd that I survived?”

“I’m grateful that you did, of course—”

“Stop the car a minute.”

“Why?”

“Just do as I say.”

He pulled up, and I very carefully climbed out and walked towards where two familiar figures were sitting on the pavement outside a Goliath Coffee Shop. I approached silently and sat down next to the larger of the two before he’d even noticed. He looked around and jumped visibly when he saw me.

“Once,” said a sad and familiar voice, “you would never have been able to sneak up on a Gryphon!”

I smiled. He was a creature with the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion. He wore spectacles and a scarf under his trench coat, which somewhat dented his otherwise fearsome appearance. He was fictional, to be sure, but he was also head of Jurisfiction’s legal team, my lawyer—and a friend.

“Gryphon!” I said with some surprise. “What are you doing in the Outland?”

“Here to see you,” he whispered, looking around and lowering his voice. “Have you met Mock Turtle? He’s now my number two at the legal desk.”

He gestured towards where a turtle with the head of a calf was staring mournfully into space. He was, like the Gryphon, straight out of the pages of Alice in Wonderland.

“How do you do?”

“Okay—I suppose,” sighed the Mock Turtle, dabbing his eyes with a handkerchief.

“So what’s up?” I asked.

“It’s quite serious—too serious for the footnoterphone. And I needed an excuse to do some Outlander research on traffic islands. Fascinating things.”

I felt hot and prickly all of a sudden. Not about traffic islands, of course, about my conviction. The Fiction Infraction. I had changed the ending of Jane Eyre and was found guilty by the Court of Hearts. All that was missing was the sentence.

“What did I get?”

“It’s not that bad!” exclaimed the Gryphon, snapping his fingers at the Mock Turtle, who passed him a sheet of paper now stained with his own tears.

I took the paper and scanned the semiblurred contents.

“It’s a bit unusual,” admitted the Gryphon. “I think the bit about the gingham is unnaturally cruel—might be the cause of an appeal on its own.”

I stared at the paper. “Twenty years of my life in blue gingham,” I murmured.

“And you can’t die until you’ve read the ten most boring books,” added the Gryphon.

“My gran had to do the same,” I explained, feeling just a little puzzled.