‘I shouldn’t be here?’ protested Arthur. ‘I don’t want to be here! Leaf and I need to get home right away.’

The Lieutenant Keeper shook his head and sheathed his sword in a scabbard that appeared out of the air.

‘You cannot return to your world, Arthur.’

‘What?!’

‘You are already there. Or rather, a copy of you is. A Spirit-eater. I wondered when I felt you pass through the Door so swiftly, without a greeting. But whoever sent the Cocigrue had planned its crossing carefully, for I was distracted, both by a sudden influx from the Border Sea and by several unlawful openings.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Arthur. ‘A copy of me is back in my world? What did you call it?’

‘A Cocigrue, or Spirit-eater.’

‘That doesn’t sound good,’ said Leaf. ‘What does one of those things do?’

‘I cannot stay to talk,’ said the Lieutenant Keeper. ‘There are still unlawful travellers within the Door. Good luck, Arthur!’

Before Arthur could protest, the Denizen had spun back into and through the Door, drawing his sword again. The outline of the sword was shaped by the ironwork decorations before it dissolved into a complex tracery of climbing roses.

Arthur pulled Leaf’s arm as she was once again entranced by the patterns on the door.

‘Oops! Sorry, Arthur. Guess you’ll have to talk to the big tall green woman now.’

‘I guess I will,’ said Arthur grimly. ‘This had better not be a trick she’s set up to keep me here.’

He turned to look back down at Dame Primus and collided with someone who materialised just in front of him, stepping off a fine yellow-and-white-patterned china plate. Both of them fell over, and Arthur instinctively hit out before he realised that the person who’d appeared was his friend Suzy.

‘Ow! Watch it!’

‘Sorry,’ said Arthur.

‘Got here as quick as I could.’ Suzy stood up with a clatter, revealing that the pockets of her long and grimy coat were stuffed with yellow-and-white Transfer Plates. ‘I nicked all the Transfer Plates for Doorstop Hill, but Old Primey’s on her way, so you’d best get through quick –’ Arthur pointed silently down the hill. Suzy stopped talking and looked over her shoulder. Dame Primus and her entourage were only a dozen yards away, the personification of the Will scowling at Suzy.

‘Dame Primus,’ called out Arthur, before the Will could start scolding Suzy or deliver a lecture. ‘I just want to go home for a quick visit and then I’ll come straight back. But there seems to be a problem.’

Dame Primus stopped before Arthur and curtsied. When she spoke, she first sounded like a normal woman. Then her voice became low and gravelly, with something of the Carp’s self-satisfied booming tone in there as well.

‘There is indeed a problem. There are many problems. I must ask you, Lord Arthur, to come back to Monday’s Dayroom. We need to hold a council of war.’

‘This isn’t some sort of trick, is it?’ asked Arthur suspiciously. ‘You haven’t put a copy of me back home yourself, have you?’

Dame Primus took in a shocked breath.

‘Never! To create such a Spirit-eater is utterly forbidden. And in any case, I have neither the knowledge nor the craft to create such a thing. It is clearly the latest move of the Morrow Days against you, Arthur, and against us. One of a number of actions that we really must discuss.’

Arthur clenched and unclenched his fists.

‘Can I go back through Seven Dials?’

Arthur had returned to his world once before using the sorcery contained in the strange room of grandfather clocks known as Seven Dials. He knew it was the other main portal for Denizens to leave the Lower House and enter the Secondary Realms.

‘No,’ said Dame Primus. ‘As I understand it, the Spirit-eater has sorcerously occupied the place you should have in your Secondary World. Should you also return, the interaction of yourself with the Nithling would cause an eruption of Nothing that would likely destroy you and, come to think of it, your world.’

‘So this Spirit-eater is kind of like an antimatter Arthur?’ asked Leaf.

Dame Primus bent her head and looked at Leaf, sniffing in disdain.

‘I don’t believe we’ve been introduced, young lady.’

‘This is my friend Leaf,’ said Arthur. ‘Leaf, meet Dame Primus.’

Leaf nodded reluctantly. Dame Primus lowered her chin a quarter of an inch.

‘What’s this Spirit-eater going to do?’ asked Arthur. ‘Besides preventing me from going back?’

‘This is not a good place to discuss such things,’ said Dame Primus. ‘We should return to Monday’s Dayroom.’

‘Okay,’ said Arthur. He looked back at the Front Door for a moment, then away again. ‘Let’s go, then.’

‘Hang on!’ Leaf interrupted. ‘What about me? I want to go back. No offence, Arthur, but I need some time at home to … I don’t know … just be normal.’

‘Leaf can go back, can’t she?’ asked Arthur wearily.

‘She can and should return,’ Dame Primus replied. ‘But it had best be through Seven Dials. The Lieutenant Keeper has closed the Door until he deals with the intruders. Come, let us all return to Monday’s Dayroom. That includes you, Suzanna. I trust you have not broken any of those plates.’

Suzy muttered something about a few chips and cracks never doing any harm, but not loud enough for Dame Primus to acknowledge her.

As they descended Doorstop Hill, Arthur noticed that there was an outer cordon of Metal Commissionaires and Commissionaire Sergeants around them, all looking out at the ground and the sky. Midnight Visitors – the black-clad servants of Monday’s Dusk – drifted through the air overhead as well, their long whips trailing by their sides. They too looked out, constantly turning their heads to cover all angles.

‘What are they looking for?’ Arthur asked Dame Primus.

‘Assassins,’ snapped Dame Primus. ‘That is one of the developments. Both the former Mister Monday and the former Grim Tuesday have been slain – by sorcery.’

Two

‘SLAIN BY SORCERY? ’ Arthur asked as they hurried into the elevator. He wanted to make sure he’d heard properly, because it was very hard to kill Denizens. ‘You mean killed? Really dead?’

Dame Primus gestured at Monday’s Noon, who moved to Arthur’s side and gave a rather foreshortened and cramped bow. They were in a very large elevator, a cube sixty feet a side, but it was completely full of various guards, clerks, and hangers-on. In one corner, there was a seated string quartet, playing a soft tune Arthur almost recognised.

‘Really dead,’ replied Monday’s Noon, his silver tongue flashing. Apart from his tongue, he hadn’t changed much since he’d been promoted by Arthur from Dusk to Noon. Though he no longer wore black, he still seemed to Arthur to embody the quiet and failing light of the evening in his speech and measured movement. ‘The former Mister Monday was stabbed through the head and heart with a sorcerous blade, and was not found quickly enough to remedy the damage. The former Grim Tuesday was pushed or thrown into the Pit from the top level.’

‘Are you sure he’s dead? I mean really sure?’ asked Arthur. He was having real trouble accepting this news. ‘Did you find his body?’

‘We found bits of it,’ said Noon. ‘He landed in a pool of Nothing. More than a score of artisans who were working on filling in the Pit saw the impact. It is likely that he too was assaulted by some kind of sorcery before he fell, so he could not cry out or attempt to save himself.’

‘Do you know who killed them?’

‘We do not know,’ Dame Primus said. ‘We can only assume that both knew something about the Morrow Days and their plans that the Morrow Days do not want us to know. It is puzzling that they should do it now, when I have already questioned both the former Trustees at length without uncovering anything of note. It is possible that it is an attempt to cover up some very disturbing news that has come to light from other quarters. We will speak of this in our council.’

‘I want to know about the Spirit-eater,’ said Arthur anxiously. ‘I mean, it’s stopping me from going home, but what else is it going to do? Will it do anything to my family?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Dame Primus. ‘We … that is, I am not a House sorcerer as such. I have called your newly appointed Wednesday’s Dusk, Dr Scamandros, to the Dayroom to tell us about Spirit-eaters. It appears that he is now the sole Upper House-trained sorcerer to be found anywhere in the Lower House, the Far Reaches, or the Border Sea.’

A bell jangled and the quartet’s strings shivered into silence. But the elevator door didn’t open.

‘Secure the Dayroom,’ Dame Primus ordered Noon. He bowed and touched the door, which opened just enough to let him lead out a dozen Commissionaire Sergeants and ordinary Commissionaires. Another dozen remained around Arthur, Leaf, Suzy, and Dame Primus.

‘We must be wary,’ said Dame Primus. ‘We can’t let you be assassinated, Arthur.’

‘Me?’ Arthur tapped the small trident that was thrust through his belt. ‘Isn’t the Third Key supposed to protect me from harm?’

‘It is,’ agreed Dame Primus. ‘But whatever killed the two former Trustees was House sorcery of a very high order. Grim Tuesday, in particular, though he had lost most of his power, would not be easy to overcome. So the assassin or assassins might be able to bypass or negate the Key’s protection. And you mortals are very fragile.’

‘Fragile.’ Hearing it made Arthur think of eggshells, and then the terrible image of his own head being broken like an eggshell, smashed to pieces by a sorcerous assassin who had crept up behind him –

Arthur forced this mind picture away with an effort of will, though he couldn’t help looking behind him. All he saw were his own guards but he still felt a tremor of fear flick through his stomach.

Aloud, he tried to make light of the situation.

‘Great,’ he said. ‘Things just keep getting better, don’t they?’

‘There is more to fear,’ said Dame Primus. ‘We will speak of it soon.’

‘All clear,’ Noon reported from outside, and the elevator door slid silently open to reveal the entrance hall of Monday’s Dayroom. Architecturally it looked pretty much like it had the last time Arthur had seen it, after the steaming mud pits and iron platforms had been transformed into old-fashioned rooms that reminded him of a museum. But there was a major difference: now there were thousands of bundles of paper tied up with red ribbon and stacked from floor to ceiling all along the walls of the hall. Every ten feet or so these piles would have a Denizen-sized gap, each occupied by a Commissionaire Sergeant standing at attention.

‘What’s with all the paper?’ Leaf asked as they walked down the hall.

No one answered until Arthur repeated the question.

‘The Middle and Upper House are bombarding us with paperwork,’ said Dame Primus. ‘It is an effective effort to tie up our resources and impede our reorganisation. Take the next door on the left, Arthur. Sneezer should have everything ready for our council.’

The next door on the left was also completely surrounded by stacked bundles of paper. It looked ordinary enough, just a simple wooden door with a solid bronze doorknob. Arthur turned the knob and pushed the door open.

A vast chamber lay on the other side, a room four or five times the size of the gym at Arthur’s school, with a ceiling ten times as high. The floor, walls, and ceiling were lined with white marble, veined in gold, so that Arthur’s first impression was that he had walked into some kind of giant’s tacky bathroom.

In the middle of this huge room sat a round table about a hundred feet in diameter. It appeared to be made of cast iron, painted deep red. It was hollow in the middle, and around the outside there were a hundred or more tall-backed chairs, also made of wrought iron, this time painted white. One chair had a much higher back, and it was either made of solid gold or gilded iron. The chair next to it was also taller, but not quite so much, and it slowly changed colour from red to white to gold and back again.

Sneezer, the butler, stood in the open centre of the table, a white cloth over one arm of his now immaculate coat. His once-untidy hair was combed back, tied with a ribbon and powdered white. He held a silver tray with three crystal tumblers of something orange (probably juice) and a tall wineglass full of a blood-coloured liquid Arthur hoped was actually wine.

There was no one sitting on the chairs, but there was a large crowd of Denizens behind the table, all standing quietly. Arthur recognised Dr Scamandros and waved, and then he waved again as he saw Sunscorch slightly behind him, looking very fine but somewhat uncomfortable in the admiral’s uniform that was his right as the new Wednesday’s Noon. Soon Arthur was waving all over the place as he recognised Japeth the Thesaurus and Mathias the Supply Clerk standing together, and Monday’s Dawn and Wednesday’s Dawn, and others from his previous adventures – as Leaf might call them – in the House.

‘Take your seats,’ bellowed Dame Primus, her voice going all gravelly and low, startling Leaf. ‘Let this council be in session. Suzanna, you can return the Transfer Plates to the china cabinet before you join us, please.’

Suzy grimaced, gave a clattering curtsy, and ran out, pausing to stick out her tongue at Dame Primus as the Will turned and gestured at the golden chair.

‘That is your throne, Lord Arthur. Everyone else is arranged in order of precedence.’