The desk seemed to be further away than it usually was. Tom found the keys in a silver bowl by the door and, trembling, went to open the top drawer where he’d seen the box.

There it was, bound in its iron bands, jewelled and impassive.

Zita looked at it for a second and then shook her head. ‘That’s not it,’ she said. ‘That’s where he stores some of the Captive’s powers for his own use.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I know, Tommy boy. Trust me.’

Frustrated, Tom placed it back in the drawer and locked it again.

‘Tell me how to look.’

‘I don’t know, I just feel it. Reach out with your mind.’ Zita shrugged her slim shoulders.

Tom did so. He sensed Zita near him, breathing gently, and could feel the warm energy that she emitted. Birdsong outside. Was that a plane, incongruous, somewhere in the sky? And not so far away, the main road leading to the market town? Disconnected images flashed through his mind: his housemaster, Fletch, capping his fountain pen. His friend, Fred, accepting a prize from the headmaster. Cricket matches.

And then, almost against his will, he started to think about his parents. As with all memories, his mother and father seemed to float in many different versions in front of his mind’s eye. His mother, youthful, closing her handbag before a party. His father, gallantly holding the car door open and winking at her.

It wasn’t the time to dwell on them, though, and he shifted his focus to the room itself. As Zita had said, he sent his mind out. He could feel the flows of energy in the room. He tested its boundaries. There was the door; there the window, there the desk and the iron-banded box.

Slowly, the layout and shape of the room formed itself in his mind. Each object shone with an inner radiance.

He sensed Jack’s imprint on every single one of them; that dark, combative energy. On some he could feel Kit’s cold, though sweeter, touch.

‘What are we looking for?’ In his mind he reached out to one of the glistening crystal spheres; but he was surprised when Zita pulled him back.

‘Don’t – don’t leave any evidence.’

‘Are we looking for something Samdhya?’

‘Yes – if you can feel them. Something that’s different, not Kit or me or Jack.’

He searched. ‘I don’t think it’s here.’

They went upstairs. Tom remembered the last time he’d gone up, and how the house itself had seemed to throw him into confusion.

The passageway darkened as they entered the narrow attic stairway.

You almost had to crawl up the final three stairs, and then you entered the corridor.

‘Seven doors,’ said Tom. ‘Seven now! And not much time.’

‘You start that way, I’ll go this.’