‘The Firm. The Company. The Business,’ said Suzy. ‘Them as wot runs the House and all its . . . I dunno . . . business.’

‘What is the House?’ asked Arthur. ‘And how can all this be inside it?’

‘Through here,’ said Suzy. She looked around, then opened a trapdoor at the base of a nearby wall. ‘Bit of a crawl.’

Arthur followed her into a narrow tunnel that led under the building. It sloped down quite sharply, then levelled out. As they crawled, Suzy answered his question.

‘I’ve never been exactly sure what the House is, cos I was an immigrant so to speak and I never seen much ’cept the Lower Atrium and maybe a dozen other floors. And I ain’t had much eddication but what I read and what some folks have taught – oomph.

’ ‘What?’ asked Arthur.

‘The House is the Epicentre of All Creation,’ said a deep voice in the darkness, scaring the life out of Arthur.

‘Tarnation!’ exclaimed Suzy. She burped and added, ‘It got out. I mean in.’

‘Um, er, frog, or whatever you are,’ Arthur asked nervously, ‘what do you mean, the Epicentre of All Creation?’

‘You may call me the Will, of which I am not an unappreciable fraction. The House is the Kingdom of All Reality and holds the Archive of All Things.’

‘Okay . . . what does that actually mean? Um, Your Will-dom.’

‘The House was built from Nothing by the Great Architect of All and was populated with servants to do Her work. Then She made the Secondary Realms, which you would call the Universe. The House and its servants were dedicated to recording and observing this great work, and did so faithfully for uncounted aeons. Then the Great Architect went away, leaving a Will to ensure that Her work, and the work of the House, would continue as it should.’

‘Right –’

‘BUT IT DID NOT!’ thundered the voice.

‘Ow! It’s my throat, you know,’ complained Suzy.

‘It did not,’ said the voice, quieter this time. ‘The Will was not executed, but broken into seven parts, and the parts scattered across the Secondary Realms, through space and time. The seven Trustees broke their faith and set out to rule the House, and not to just observe and record, but to interfere with the Secondary Realms. To meddle with Creation!’

‘Let me guess,’ volunteered Arthur. ‘Is Mister Monday one of those guys?’

‘He is indeed, though that is not his real name,’ rumbled the Will. ‘There is little honour among thieves, but enough that the seven Trustees agreed to divide power in both the House and the Secondary Realms. Monday rules the Lower House. Outside of it, he holds dominion over everything on any given Monday.’

‘This really isn’t the place to talk about this stuff,’ said Suzy nervously. ‘How about we wait . . . eerg –’

Her voice was drowned in a gurgle.

‘Time moves in the House ever forward, though it be malleable outside,’ the Will continued. ‘Even now Mister Monday seeks to retrieve what he has lost. Half of one of the Seven Keys to the Kingdom, the Seven Keys of the House, the Seven Keys of Creation!’

‘Half of one of seven Keys don’t sound like much,’ said Suzy. ‘By my reckoning that’s –’

‘From Nothing came the whole House,’ intoned the Will, cutting Suzy off. ‘Half of one Key is better than nothing. Soon the Rightful Heir will have the other half too, and the first part of the Will shall be done!’

‘Hang on!’ exclaimed Arthur. ‘You mean me? I don’t want to be the heir to anything. I just want to get a cure for the plague and go home.’

‘You are a Rightful Heir!’ bellowed the Will. Then a little more quietly it added, ‘You are the only one on hand, that is, whether you like it or not. We shall prevail!’

‘Bit overconfident, aren’t you?’ Suzy coughed. In the dim light Arthur saw she was massaging her throat. ‘A deluded green frog, one mortal visitor, and a Ink-Filler Sixth Class ain’t much up against Mister Monday and the whole apparatus of the Lower House.’

‘The what?’ asked Arthur.

‘Something I heard once,’ said Suzy. ‘Sounded good. The apparatus of the House. Which means Monday’s Noon and his goons, the Elevator Drivers, the Commissionaires in the Atrium, and the Stampers and Sealers. Not to mention Monday’s Dawn and her Corps of Inspectors, and Monday’s Dusk and whatever special thingummies he commands.’

‘Winged Servants of the Night,’ said the Will. ‘And Midnight Visitors. No . . . the Winged Servants fall under the aegis of Sir Thursday and his Dusk. I think.’

‘Now it’s not even sure about a minor detail, and it wants to take on the Big Bosses,’ said Suzy. ‘We’re about to come out in the street, Will, so be quiet!’

‘I am only a portion of the Will, and so my knowledge is incomplete.’

‘I said be quiet!’ hissed Suzy. She stopped and lifted a trapdoor above her head a fraction, poked her head up, and looked around.

‘Right. Looks clear. We’ll come out in the corner of a shipping office, behind a crate that’s lost its label. Been here for a couple of centuries. We’ll wait there for a second, then when the bell rings, we run for the goods elevator. Understand?’

‘No,’ said Arthur. ‘I mean, I get the bit about running for the goods elevator at the bell. It’s everything else I’m having trouble with.’

‘I bet it’s going to get even worse,’ said Suzy gloomily as they climbed out and crouched down behind the crate. ‘I knew I never should have picked up that cursed frog. Though I suppose anything beats filling up inkwells all day for the next ten thousand years. And I might miss the next time they try to wash between my ears.’

‘Wash between your ears? You mean behind?’ asked Arthur. From what he could see, Suzy could do with a wash behind her ears.

‘No, between,’ replied Suzy. ‘Every hundred years or so all the kids get their minds washed. Dunno why. It hurts likes a toothache, not that I’ve had a bad tooth here, and you forget most everything except the basics. I’ve had to learn to read again about . . . well . . . a lot of times. ’Cept I never really forgot how I got here, and sometimes I can still sort of remember wot life was like before –’

She was about to add something else when a bell started clattering in the room. Instantly Suzy jumped up, grabbed Arthur’s hand, and dragged him across the room, pushing through a group of leather-aproned men and women who had just started carrying boxes and crates towards an open goods elevator.

Suzy and Arthur beat them to it, and Suzy rolled the door shut in front of their surprised faces. Though there was something odd about their looks of surprise, Arthur thought as Suzy selected and pressed a button from the hundreds or maybe even thousands of tiny bronze buttons that covered one entire wall of the elevator.

‘I do this all the time,’ said Suzy as the elevator began to move with a series of shudders that slowly became a fluid motion. Arthur felt himself being pushed down by the acceleration and had to bend his knees and grab hold of a polished wooden handrail. It was a lot more acceleration than he’d ever experienced in an elevator before.

‘They always look surprised, but I think that’s just in case someone from outside is watching,’ continued Suzy. ‘Though they might have really been surprised this time, since I always travel alone.’

‘Won’t there be a problem when whatever they’re supposed to be delivering doesn’t get there?’ asked Arthur.

Suzy shook her head.

‘Probably no one will even notice. Everything in the Lower Atrium is right stuffed up. Nothing ever gets done shipshape and in proper fashion.’

‘Why not?’

‘I dunno,’ said Suzy with an expressive shrug. ‘I’ve heard it said Mister Monday won’t do anything to fix any problems – ick –’

‘Sloth,’ pronounced the Will from Suzy’s mouth. ‘Mister Monday is afflicted with it, and it creeps ever more from him and downward through the Lower House. When the Will is done, sloth shall be banished, and vigour will return.’

‘Can’t you get out and talk for yourself?’ protested Suzy angrily as she massaged her throat again.

‘Yes, please do,’ said Arthur anxiously. It was very creepy listening to that deep voice emanating from a young girl.

‘Very well, since you ask, Arthur,’ said the Will. As it spoke Suzy’s eyes goggled and she leaned forward, her throat convulsing. A moment later the green frog shot out and landed on the wall with a sticky plop. It hung there for a while, its iridescent eyes swivelling around, then jumped to the handrail near Arthur.

‘Concealment is often necessary,’ said the frog in the same deep voice. ‘Mister Monday is not without certain powers, and his minions are not without perception.’

‘How long will it take to get to the . . . I forget the name of the office?’ asked Arthur.

‘Oh, a minute more or so,’ replied Suzy. ‘You never know. Sometimes it’s almost straight away, sometimes hours. I was in one elevator that broke down and I was stuck in it for fourteen months. But we’re travelling well today.’

‘Fourteen months! But you’d die.’

Suzy shook her head. ‘It’s not easy to die in the House. You can’t die from lack of food or water. Though you can get horribly hungry, and you can get killed, but even that’s not easy. There’s pain all right and you can suffer something terrible, but wounds that should kill don’t always, least not for the Denizens and maybe not for us Piper’s children neither, though I ain’t testing it to find out for sure. The Denizens can even get their heads cut off and, if they can stick it back on again soon enough, they’ll come good in a while. But the Commissionaires’ weapons can kill, and fire if it’s hot enough, and the Nithlings . . . a festering bite or scratch from a Nithling will dissolve you into Nothing. That’s why everyone’s afraid of them.

‘But you can’t die of sickness here, or even get sick. Not real sick, like with a fever or the water runs or the black vomiting. There is a fashion to use colds and sniffs brought in from the Realms. But they’re usually in a charm that you can take off, or in something you can eat that only lasts for a while, and you only get the sneezes or the cough or the red eyes. You don’t feel sick. No one needs to eat or drink either, though tea is fashionable and everyone eats just for fun or to show off. No trouble neither, since you don’t . . . you know . . . no toilets in the House, none required.’

‘How long have you been here?’ asked Arthur. He felt his head whirling with everything he’d learned.

‘Dunno,’ replied Suzy with a shrug. ‘It’s the cleaning between the ears. Besides, House Time is different.’

‘House Time is true Time,’ intoned the Will. ‘Time in the Secondary Realms is malleable to a certain degree, at least going backwards. Remember that, Arthur. It may be useful. Gleep.’

‘What? Gleep?’

‘This frog’s body was forged from Nothing. Though it is only a copy of a jade taken from your own world, Grim Tuesday himself shaped it, so much of its frogginess and the strength of the original stone were captured. It is a hard shape to inhabit. Remember this too, Arthur –’

‘Hang on!’ interrupted Arthur. He took a deep breath. ‘I want to get a few things sorted out. Why did you choose me to be this Rightful Heir? Why did I get the Key and the Atlas – which, by the way, the Fetchers took off with.’

‘Chance and circumstance,’ said the Will. ‘I will relate to you the situation. Twelve days ago, as Time flows in the House, I managed to free myself from the bonds and strictures employed to imprison me on a distant star. I came to the House and managed by ways sneaky and deceitful to enter the mind of Sneezer, Mister Monday’s butler and factotum. From within Sneezer, I enticed Monday to give away the Key to a mortal who was soon to die. He thought he could then reclaim the Key, since having given it away once he would have fulfilled the conditions of the Will and so would be safe from any retribution by the powers of Righteousness and Law. That is to say, myself and the other parts of the Will that may yet escape their durance. You know what happened then.’

‘But why me? And why did you want a mortal to have the Key?’

‘It was mere chance you were chosen in particular. It was written by the Architect that only a mortal can be a Rightful Heir,’ said the Will. ‘I simply went through the records of those who would die on an easily accessible Monday. I wanted someone who would be mentally flexible. Young and not oversuperstitious or rigidly religious, so that ruled out a great many Mondays throughout what you call history. It had to be a Monday so Mister Monday and myself – as Sneezer, of course – would be able to enter your world.’

‘I was really going to die?’ asked Arthur slowly. This was a new shock. ‘Of an asthma attack?’

‘Yes,’ said the Will. ‘But when you took the Key, you changed the record.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘It’s quite simple, Arthur. Listen carefully. Every record in the House, whether it be on stone or metal, papyrus or paper, is intimately connected with what it records in the Secondary Realms. As whatever it records changes out there, so does the record. If you have the power, you can see what changes are to come and it is possible to intervene. But the reverse is also true. If a record is changed here, then that change will occur to the person, place, object, or whatever is recorded.’