The pain in her hands was too much. She let go and fell, feet slipping from underneath her so she sprawled on her bottom in the dust. Alice lay there for a long moment, listening to the receding sound of the fairy’s wings and Mr Black’s footsteps, and clenched her fists where the steel edge of the bookcase had rasped them raw. She was breathing hard.

More footsteps made her look up. Emma was approaching, grey with dust.

‘Mr Wurms told me to find you,’ she said. ‘And bring you to him. He said to tell you that you should not go off by yourself, and that he is very cross.’

The response that bubbled to Alice’s lips was very rude, and would have shocked her father. She bit it back, closed her eyes, and tried to steady her breathing.

He’s here. The fairy is here, in the library.

It wasn’t the time for anger, or wild notions. Calm, collected action. Alice got to her feet, carefully, and followed Emma back toward Mr Wurms’s table.

I’ll figure out a way to find him. Make a plan.

Then I’ll grab the damned thing and shake him until his teeth rattle, unless he tells me what he did with my father.

Chapter Six: Sneaking Out

CHAPTER SIX

SNEAKING OUT

The prudent thing to do, Alice knew, would be to wait. She still knew too little about the library, and even less about the fairy. She hoped that Mr Black would send her there again to help Mr Wurms, but he didn’t, and by the next day Alice was frantic. All she could think about was the fairy, and what she was going to ask him when she finally got her hands around his neck. By that night, she realized it was a choice between sneaking out to the library right then and there, or lying awake until dawn staring at the ceiling, and Alice gave in.

She left her usual clothes behind and crept out her door wearing only a nightshirt and slippers. Mr Black sometimes walked the halls at night, and a little shivering would be a small price to pay against the possibility that he’d catch her on her way out. It would be easy to say that she’d gone to the toilet and got lost in the dark – it had actually happened to her twice already – but that excuse wouldn’t fly if she had her coat and hat on.

She brought with her a box of matches, a candle, a pencil, and a few folded sheets of paper. The latter, she thought, might come in handy if she needed to take something down, or perhaps copy something out of a book. She’d considered arming herself with one of the pokers from the downstairs hearth, but she couldn’t imagine a situation where that would really make a difference.