‘I am,’ Emma said. She got to her feet and took hold of the front of the trolley again, without even dusting herself off.

Alice looked over her shoulder. The cat, to her surprise, was still there. Its tail flicked back and forth, raising little puffs of dust.

The cat did not snicker at me, Alice thought. I’m losing my mind.

But, underneath that, the ever-present refrain: If my father can talk to a fairy over our kitchen table, who knows what a cat can do?

‘Emma,’ Alice said, without taking her eyes off the feline. ‘Can you take the trolley the rest of the way to Mr Wurms?’

‘I can,’ Emma said. A moment passed, and she remained still, waiting for Alice to resume her place at the back.

Alice sighed. ‘Emma, take the cart to Mr Wurms. Tell him I will be along shortly.’

Emma nodded and started pulling. Alice felt guilty for a moment for making her haul the heavy load by herself, but it wasn’t that much farther to Mr Wurms’s table and there was only one more corner. Once the squeaking, rattling trolley had made a little progress, Alice walked back towards the cat, moving slowly so as not to startle it.

The cat raised its head, and its eyes rolled in an excellent imitation of an impatient look. It raised one paw and started to wash itself daintily.

‘Hello,’ Alice said quietly. She did not wish to be seen trying to talk to cats. ‘Was that you I heard laughing at me?’

The cat did not reply – honestly, Alice would have been startled if it had – but after a moment it stood up, stretched, yawned, and jumped to the floor. It sauntered a few steps, through a gap between shelves that led away from Mr Wurms’s table, then stopped and pointedly looked over its shoulder.

‘You want me to . . .’ Alice paused. This is crazy. But what was the worst that could happen? She glanced upward, to make sure the markers in the ceiling were still there. No matter how much of a maze the place was, it couldn’t be that hard to find her way out.

The cat cocked its head inquisitively. Alice raised her lantern a little higher and went after it, and it turned away from her immediately and led the way through the gap in the shelves and down a little lane, small footprints trailing behind it in the dust.

They walked for some time. The distant noise of the trolley’s progress vanished almost at once, and there was no sound in the library except for the soft padding of her own footsteps. The darkness seemed to close in around her, no matter how high she lifted the lantern. The cat looked over its shoulder from time to time, to make sure she was still there, and its eyes glowed yellow in the dim light.