“Fair,” Alice said. The swarmers rushed past her, stacking the books beside the table. Controlling so many of the little creatures was always a challenge, especially on a complex task, and Alice felt a touch of pride when they finished the pile without a single book toppling.

“Good, good.” Mr. Wurms set his pen down and closed his ledger with a thump. Alice was taken aback. She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him stop writing. “Our presence has been requested at the house this afternoon. The master wishes to speak to everyone.” He looked up at where Ashes sat atop the bookcases. “Including you, rat-catcher.”

“I’d like to see you catch a rat, mister scribbler,” Ashes said. “Tell you what, we’ll see how long your precious books last if my brothers and sisters quit keeping the vermin down.”

“Did he say what he wanted?” Alice said, ignoring the cat.

“No,” Mr. Wurms said. “Most unusual.”

He pushed his chair back from the table and stood up, joints cracking and crunching like someone chewing a mouthful of popcorn. He was much taller than Alice would have guessed, his legs long and stick-thin. More dust puffed off his jacket, filling the air with haze.

“Well,” he said, glancing down at Alice with another sickly smile. “Shall we be off?”

CHAPTER FOUR

HOUSESITTING

SINCE ALICE’S LABYRINTHINE abilities were a secret from everyone but Ending and Ashes, she had to walk all the way to the entrance of the library beside Mr. Wurms. She pulled open the bronze door and stepped outside into a world of cold and brilliant white.

The new year had come and gone, as unremarked as Christmas. Somewhere out in the world beyond, 1932 was getting started, but Alice felt as far away from that world as if she lived on the moon. This was her home now, among the books and the portals, and only these brief passages between them reminded her that there was a world beyond the infinite shelves of the library. And in any case, celebrating a holiday here would feel wrong, and only make her miss her father more than she already did.

It had started snowing in November and hadn’t stopped. The forests that surrounded the estate on all sides were robed in white, skeletal trees piled thick with snow. The lawn between the house and the library was buried under at least two feet of the stuff, fine, dry powder that rose in great swirling pale gusts when the wind blew. A path, kept clear by the efforts of Mr. Black, led from the library to the kitchen door.

Ashes hopped up to his customary position on Alice’s shoulder, staring at the snow with an exaggerated shudder. “Nasty stuff,” he muttered. “Gets in your fur, and then when it melts you’re just miserable.”

“I don’t mind it,” Alice said. Today, the wind was blessedly absent, and the sky was a clear, crystalline blue.