“His reasoning is difficult to explain,” said Riley, frowning. “He calls me his son, to save or drown as he pleases. But I ain’t his son, and I hate him. I have bolted before, and he has followed me across the whole of the city.” Riley pointed to his right eye. “I ran away to Saint Giles last year. Squared myself away down with the guttersnipes, but Garrick’s snouts informed on me. That devil rooted me out and gave me a sound thrashing. The eye was never the same, but I can see out of it clear enough. Now Garrick has even followed me here, like Mr. Wells’s Time Traveler.”

“Well, Mr. Garrick has no snouts here,” said Chevie. “And, just for your information, people have being trying to find the outhouse for years. People from this century—if they couldn’t find it, neither will he. You have no idea how things have changed since your day.” Chevie thought of something. “But I can give you an idea. Sit there.”

Chevie pointed to the deep purple sofa in front of the flat black TV. She logged on to the Internet and navigated to a Web site that had a series of videos documenting major political, scientific, and cultural changes. She chose one and played it.

“Now sit there and learn something,” she instructed the Victorian boy.

Riley had been dumbfounded so often already this evening that he did not remark upon the HD graphics, but the site’s music almost moved him to tears.

“It’s like sitting beside the entire orchestra,” he said softly. “A music machine with pictures.”

Chevie walked toward the bathroom. “A music machine with pictures. I like that. Okay, you absorb whatever you can while I clean up a little. Just don’t touch the screen.”

This time Riley did look away from the TV. “Why not? Would I be transported to the land of the magic machine?”

Chevie was tempted to say yes, but the kid had been through enough for one day. “No, this ain’t Tron. But you would smear the screen, which would freak out the elf.”

Riley returned his gaze to the screen. Freaking out the elf sounded like a terrible thing indeed. He would look but not touch.

BEDFORD SQUARE. BLOOMSBURY. LONDON. NOW

At first Albert Garrick was mightily angered by being trapped in Bedford Square, but such were his new powers that a dozen solutions to his problem soon flowed like a balm across his spiky mood. The magician calmed himself and sat in front of his laptop in the ground floor office.

No, not my laptop. Felix Smart’s laptop.

Though that more or less amounted to the same thing. Felix Smart’s mind was inside his own, leaking information like a cracked gourd.