Endymion Spring

14

The sound of scratching woke him, something was trying to get in!

Blake opened his eyes and tore the covers from his body in a panic, remembering the camouflaged dragon he had glimpsed in the tree a few hours earlier. His legs were tangled in a bed sheet, but he managed to scramble free and backed against the wall, breathing hard. He gripped his pillow like a shield and stared at the window.

Nothing was there. Nobody was trying to get in.

He rubbed his eyes. The branches of the nearest tree had been stripped of their leaves by the storm last night and the dragon, if there had been one, had flown away. His imagination must have been playing tricks on him.

He listened carefully, straining to hear anything over the sound of blood galloping in his ears. Then, from somewhere outside, came the soft, scratching noise again.

He edged closer to the window and peered outside.

There, by the garden gate, stood a dog. A scruffy gray dog with a wiry tail. It was scratching at the post, as if beckoning him to come down. Blake raked his hand through his hair, wondering what to do.

And then, out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed a flash of yellow, streaking from the front of the house to the gate. Duck! What was she doing up so early?

He blinked in astonishment. The dog wagged its tail, as if it had been expecting her all along, and then licked her face as she bent down to stroke it.

And then he remembered. The dog belonged to the homeless man he had seen outside the bookshop. He scanned the pavement for a sign of the strangely dressed figure, but couldn't see him anywhere.

What should he do? It was too early to wake his mother and he knew he oughtn't to leave the house without her permission; yet surely a dog couldn’t be dangerous…

"Duck!" he hissed, watching helplessly as she started following the dog towards the main road, as if they had planned this little excursion together. She didn't look back once.

"Oh, Duck!" he moaned, and dashed away from the window.

There was no time to lose. He pulled on the same scruffy jeans, hooded sweatshirt and smelly socks from the day before and quickly tied his shoelaces, his fingers in knots. Grabbing his coat from the back of a chair, he raced across the landing; then, remembering the dog's bandanna, he rushed back to retrieve it.

He glanced once more out of the window. Duck was almost at the street corner. Soon she would be out of sight.

"Damn, damn, damn," he muttered as he darted down the stairs. He snatched the spare key from its hook — Duck had failed to take it — and ran outside.

The morning was frosty and cold, suffused with a soft white light like the milk bottles he almost tripped over on the doorstep. Duck was visible a short distance ahead, a bright yellow sun battling her way through the mist. Blake rushed after her, cursing her under his breath. She showed no sign of letting up.

"Duck!" he yelled as she crossed the main road and followed the dog down a short slope towards the river, her little legs motoring quickly. He braked sharply to avoid an oncoming bus that kicked up a spray of water against the curb and then, nerves buzzing, charged after her.

"What do you think you're doing?" he snarled when he finally caught up with her by the river. The current was strong, flowing fast. "Are you deaf or something?"

He clutched her fiercely by the arm and swung her round. Her eyes were dark and puffy, ringed with shadow, as though she had been crying.

"What's wrong?" he said, taken aback.

"Let me go," she said weakly, and struggled against his grasp. She managed to wriggle free.

"Look, I don't have time for this," he protested. "You've got to get back before Mum wakes up."

"I'm not going anywhere," she said petulantly, and dug in her heels. The dog whimpered and wagged its tail, confused.

Blake shook his head and kicked at the ground. "Come on, Mum's going to be real mad if she finds out you're missing."

He tugged on her coat, but she wormed her arm free and left he sleeve dangling. He let go.

"Fine, suit yourself," he said, changing his mind. He took two large strides back towards the road and then checked behind him. Normally, that would have worked; normally, his sister lost her nerve and followed. But this time she headed in the opposite direction.

"Oh, for goodness sake," he cried out, exasperated, and rushed back to join her.

"Who's the baby now?" she sneered.

"I'm not a baby," he defended himself, "but Mum's going to be furious if you're not home by the time she gets up." He glanced over his shoulder at a dark, creeper-covered house that was just visible through a gap in the trees. It straddled a small brook that threaded away from the river. An old wooden rowing boat had been moored alongside it.

Duck didn't say anything.

"Are you sure you're all right?"

"I'm fine."

She sounded anything but fine. He looked at her again, concerned.

"OK, I couldn't sleep very well," she confided at last. "I was thinking about the blank book and everything Professor Jolyon told us and then I heard the dog scratching at the door and I thought that…well, maybe…it could be important. The homeless man could be in trouble."

The dog regarded them hopefully, its tail set on autopilot. Without its red bandanna, it looked older and scruffier than Blake remembered and he felt sorry for it. It was probably hungry, poor thing.

"Well, do you think we should tell Mum where we're going?" he asked, trying to maintain some semblance of responsibility.

"And where exactly is that?" she scoffed.

He looked around helplessly and shrugged. On the north side of the river loomed a series of boxy boathouses, shrouded in mist, while an empty playing field stretched into the distance to his right. "I don't know," he said at last, "but at least we could tell her about the dog — and maybe about the homeless man. She might be able to help…if he really is in trouble."

Duck shook her head. "Are you crazy? She'd never let us go. This is our only chance."

Blake bit his lip. She had a point. Their mother would never agree to an early morning expedition, no matter how important.

"But what if it's a trap?" he asked, replaying Jolyon's warning in his mind. They could both be in danger.

"Yeah, right. A dog is trying to kidnap us! Just tell Mum you were trying to stop me," said Duck, marching after the dog, which once again led the way.

Blake remained where he was. He was convinced the homeless man knew something about Endymion Spring. Perhaps he could even help them find it! And yet his methods were more than a little unorthodox and Blake wasn't sure he could trust him.

"Well, let's just make this quick, OK?" he said, breaking into a trot to catch up. He didn't want to admit that he was frightened — especially to his sister — but he wasn't going to turn back without her. At the very least, he could defend her if something went wrong.

"Sure, whatever," she said, and wandered on ahead.

Against his better judgment, he followed.

The mist was thicker away from the city and swans glided towards them along the water in silver Vs, like ghostly ballerinas. It was too early for rowers or joggers, and they were alone on the muddy path. They meandered past boggy fields and yet more boathouses, where the colleges kept their long racing boats and sculls.

Blake could see the shadowy outline of the city's buildings growing ever more distant behind an avenue of trees on the far side of the river. Its spires and domes dissolved in the dim light. Yet hidden somewhere inside that impressive backdrop, he was convinced, lay the secret of Endymion Spring, and he was determined to find it — no matter what it took. Even if it meant opening every book and following every clue until he tracked it down.

The mud squelched underfoot and spattered against his jeans as he walked. Duck had been sensible enough to put on boots, but she was cold. The morning chill penetrated her thin raincoat and she shivered.

To be kind, he offered his jacket, which she accepted with a small, grateful smile. She didn't say anything, but kept her eyes fixed ahead, her thoughts far away.

Was she envious because Endymion Spring had singled him out for attention? Or had she, too, heard what his mother had said last night — that they weren't going to be a family together after Christmas — and wanted to get her own back by disappearing?

He wasn't sure what to think; yet he was grateful for her company, a feeling that surprised him, even though he didn't mention it to her.

They trudged on in silence.

Behind them, a chorus of bells began to strike the hour. Four, five…six o'clock. A medley of bangs and bongs circled the city like a flock of iron birds. Blake raised the hood of his top and squirreled his hands into his pockets, hunching his shoulders.

This world seemed strangely unreal to him this early in the morning — like a dream. Mist clung to the trees on either side of the river like fragments of sleep, draping their silvery fronds in the murky water. The sun, he noticed, was struggling to burn through the haze, but it was too weak. Only a ring of dim gold leaked through the cloud. Clumps of mud stuck to the soles of his shoes like hoofs.

Just when he was beginning to tire of walking, he spotted a small village on the brow of a hill overlooking a narrow waterway in the distance and heard a rush of water spilling through a weir. It sounded like a waterfall. A sign indicated they were entering Iffley Lock and that cyclists should dismount and dogs be kept of short leads.

The homeless man's dog paid no attention to the sign, but guided them over a stone bridge towards a strip of tarmac with neatly tended flowerbeds planted along its sides. The children looked around them. The water flowing into the lock was deep, black and flecked with leaves and litter. Further along the river, a brightly painted longboat chugged upstream, leaving traces of coal-like smoke in the air.

And then they saw him.

The homeless man was seated at the bottom of a series of stone steps leading right down to the water's edge. Several ducks squabbled for the bits of bread he tossed into the current. He noticed the children, but did not get up.

"What do we do now?" whispered Blake.

"Join him, I guess."

"I'm not going down there," he answered, glancing at the man's stooped form. "It could be dangerous. If he wants to speak to us, he can come up."

They waited uneasily while the man continued feeding the birds. Blake was relieved to see another figure on the opposite side of the lock: a lock-keeper inspecting the moorings and other pieces of equipment, a coil of rope slung across his shoulder. He noticed them and raised a hand in greeting.

"You needn't worry about her," he yelled across the water, indicating the dog. "She doesn't need a leash. She's a real softie, she is."

As he said this, the homeless man got up rather stiffly and mounted the steps towards the children. Blake felt a splinter of fear run under his skin and pushed Duck behind him, to protect her. The man was wearing the same mangy robe and furry nightcap as the other day. Tall and gaunt, he carried a staff — a bit like a wizard.

The man and boy exchanged silent looks for a long, tremulous moment, and then the stranger led them towards a small clearing behind a cluster of trees close to the lock: a private place where they could talk. Blake checked to make sure that the lock-keeper was keeping an eye on them, just in case they needed help.

The man waved.

Duck, too, seemed to have lost some of her initial bravado. Like Blake, she was probably wondering why they weren't safely tucked up in bed, fast asleep. Anything could happen to them out here and no one would know. Warily, they followed the man through the thin, nearly leafless trees.

There were remnants of a bonfire in the middle of the clearing and Blake sat down on one of the logs that had been placed nearby. The mound of twigs resembled a large, smoldering porcupine and he inched closer, grateful for its warmth. A scratchy, smoky scent prickled his nose.

The dog sidled up to him and place a grizzled muzzle on his knee, looking up at him with doleful eyes.

The boy stroked its head while the man selected some more wood for the fire. A tarpaulin had been spread across a pile of twigs on the far side of the clearing and Blake guessed that the man probably camped here often. There were a few tins and discarded blankets weighed down with bricks on the leaf-littered ground.

The stranger approached and pressed an armful of sticks onto the remains of the fire. The mound hissed and crackled slightly, but did not burst into flame. Shrugging, he sat down opposite the children, but not too close. He apparently didn't want to alarm them. His robe hung open behind him and Blake was fascinated to see dozens of pockets zigzagging across its lining. Scrolls of paper stuck out from some of them like vials, while books bulged squarely in others. He was carrying a portable library inside his coat. Blake longed to know what sort of books they were, but the man said nothing and waited patiently for him to speak first.

The boy wondered where to begin and then, clearing his throat, asked the question that was uppermost in his mind.

"Who are you?"

15

The man considered the question for a moment, but said nothing. Then, to fill the silence, Blake voiced the idea that had occurred to him earlier: "Are you Johann Gutenberg?"

Duck was the first to react. "Are you serious?" she cackled. "Of course he's not Gutenberg! Gutenberg died more than five hundred years ago, you idiot!"

Blake blushed. Curiously, however, the man's mouth softened into a smile. Blake was surprised by the transformation: It was as though someone had take a crumpled sheet of paper and smoothed it out, revealing a hidden greeting inside. The stranger's eyes no longer seemed so distant or far away, but showed renewed signs of life — unlike the fire, which he prodded again with his staff.

The man opened his mouth to speak, but no sound emerged. Blake listened carefully, but the man's voice seemed to have dried up and only a distant sound of breathing could be heard. He closed his mouth again without uttering a word.

Blake frowned. "I'm sorry?" He thought he might have misheard, but the stranger merely shook his head and pressed a fingertip to his lips. His eyes, however, were smiling.

Blake turned to his sister. "Is he hungry, do you think?"

"Don't be silly," she said. "He probably hasn't spoken to anyone in ages. Perhaps he's lost his voice."

Blake pondered this for a moment. Could someone actually forget how to speak? That must be horrible. He chewed on his lip. The man obviously expected him to know where to begin, how to lead the discussion, but too many questions were bombarding his mind and he didn't know which one to ask first — let alone how to express any of them.

"Thanks for the dragon," he said at last.

The man doffed his hat and scratched at the thatch of scraggly hair beneath.

"What dragon?" said Duck.

He'd forgotten she didn't know. "A dragon he dropped off at the house yesterday morning," answered Blake.

"What?" she blurted out. "That's preposterous! What do you mean by a dragon? There are no such things as dragons! How could he drop off a—"

"I mean an origami dragon he made with special paper," said Blake. "Like the paper in the book I found."

"Why didn't you tell me?" cried Duck, offended. "I could have helped you!"

"I didn't need your help. Besides, I figured out what it meant on my own."

"Oh yeah? So, what does the dragon mean, Einstein?"

"It means we're — I mean, I'm — supposed to ask him about the blank book."

The man nodded, but neither Blake nor Duck noticed. They were glaring at each other and had started to argue.

"And what exactly are you going to ask?"

"I don't know," he responded lamely. "Something will occur to me as soon as you stop interrupting."

"Yeah, right. You wouldn't know what to say if he wrote down the question for you. Nice going, idiot."

"Look, you didn' t find the blank book and you didn't receive the paper dragon, so mind your own business. This doesn't concern you."

He reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out the dog's bandanna, which he started threading round his fingers like a boxer taping his knuckles. "You're just jealous," he muttered, giving his sister a sideways glance.

"Oh yeah? Jealous of what?"

"Of the book I found."

"You mean the one you lost," she reminded him. "Or have you forgotten that too?"

"Of course I haven't."

She knew she had the upper hand. "The book probably realized its mistake," she taunted him, "and went back into hiding until someone else could find it."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you're too dumb to solve this mystery on your own," she said.

"That's what you think."

"Yep, and I'm smarter than you.."

"Well, you're not as clever as you think you are," he said angrily, rising from his log. "You're just a silly girl in a silly raincoat, who thinks Mum and Dad will stick together so long as you go on wearing it. But they won't, you'll see! They'll get divorced and then we'll have to live on different sides of the ocean. Then you'll be happy, won't you, because you'll never have to see me again! Anyway, Endymion Spring chose me, and not you, so get over it."

He knew he was hitting her everywhere it hurt, but he was not prepared for her reaction. Duck looked about to sneeze, but her face crumpled instead into tears. Immediately, he reached out to hold her, but she shook off his clumsy attempt at an apology and covered her face with her hands. She rocked back and forth, sobbing.

He hadn't seen her cry like this — at least, not since the Big Argument. His words had opened a deep and dangerous wound.

The man had been watching them with a subdued look of tenderness on his face, as though he knew the pain and suffering the book could cause. Yet at the mention of Endymion Spring he stood up and approached them. The name seemed to fit like a key in a lock and released him from his inactivity.

He still did not speak, but sat down between them and reached into one of his voluminous pockets. He brought out a battered book — the volume he had been reading outside the bookshop. It wasn't blank, as Duck had led Blake to believe, but full of densely printed words: old-fashioned words with barbed black letters and small illustrations of angels and skeletons and devils — not to mention men working on presses like the one Jolyon had shown them yesterday. Some of the pages were torn and others were covered in nasty brown blotches. The book was falling apart.

Duck stopped crying and looked up.

At last the homeless man turned to a series of blank white pages he had inserted near the back of the volume preceding them: the finest tissue paper, veined with silver lines.

Blake gasped. "How did you get this?" he asked, realizing at once that he was looking at part of Endymion Spring.

In answer, the man pointed to one of the blank pages, where Blake could see something forming. It was as if someone had breathed on a mirror and drawn a message on the foggy glass. Lines appeared — at first very faint, but then darker as more and more of the image was revealed. They were like pin scratches on skin before they well with blood. The boy's eyes widened in astonishment.

"What does it say?" squeaked Duck. "Tell me!"

"Can't you see it?" he said, surprised.

"No. I could see the printed bits, but not this," she said, sitting on the edge of her log. "It's like it's the blank book I told you about."

She sounded upset and more than a little bit jealous still, but her curiosity was getting the better of her.

Blake wasn't sure how to describe the apparition. It was an ancient tree with an odd beast dwelling in its leaves. He could see it quite clearly and reached forward to touch it. The creature seemed to sense his presence and flicked its head nervously from side to side before darting away from his enquiring finger.

And then, perhaps at his touch, the animal shivered and disappeared. The tree was no more than a memory on the page, a wintry outline, becoming fainter and fainter, until it had faded away completely.

Blake held his breath. "What was that?" he asked eventually, thinking it had looked like the dragon he had seen in the tree last night.

"What was what?" cried Duck.

"A dragon, I think," he said less certainly, "in a tree. Something happened. I don't understand. It didn't answer my question at all."

Duck didn't know what the image meant either, but promised to find out something later in the library. Blake might be able to read from enchanted books, she remarked, but at least she could learn things from real ones.

Blake, however, wasn't listening. He had looked up at the homeless man. "How did you — how did the book — do that?" he asked, but the man was miles away, staring at the book, as if he could see something else.

Blake glanced at the page. It was blank.

"Who are you? he asked again. "What is your name?"

The man seemed to emerge from a daydream. He shrugged off a memory and flipped to the front of the book, where he underlined a partially obscured word with a grimy fingernail.

Blake frowned. The syllables lodged like fish bones at the back of his throat. How was he supposed to pronounce it?

"It says his name is—" he started.

"I can read this, dummy," said Duck irritably, cutting him off.

She pushed his head out of the way and studied the man's name for a moment. Then she looked up and smiled.

"I'm pleased to meet you, Psalmanazar."

Blake's face wrinkled in consternation. Psalmanazar? What kind of name was that? It reminded him of an angel or a djinn. "Are you a wizard or something?" he asked finally.

Psalmanazar smiled, but shook his head.

"Then how did you know to contact me?" asked Blake, before Duck could interrupt.

Psalmanazar flipped to the end of the book, where several words were waiting for Blake, in ink as faint as ash. Even this message didn't make much sense. He mouthed the words to himself, unable to fathom their meaning.

"Come on," Duck badgered him. "What does it say?"

He read the lines aloud:

"The Silence will end — the Sun approaches.

Mark my Word — the Shadow encroaches.

"That's weird," he added. "The sun appeared in the other riddle, too. It's like an instruction or a warning of some kind."

"And the shadow," said Duck, ominously. "Don't forget that."

With a shiver, Blake remembered Jolyon's stark warning about a Person in Shadow — someone who would stop at nothing to find the Last Book.

He was about to say something when he noticed the following page had been neatly excised from Psalmamazar's book, possibly so that the man could construct the paper dragon.

On a whim, he asked, "Did this message appear the other day, when we saw you outside the bookshop?"

The man looked pleased and nodded.

So that was it! Somehow, the paper — Endymion Spring 's paper — must have told him to look up from the book. But why?

Blake reread the riddle. The suggestion that the Person in Shadow — perhaps the person Jolyon had warned the about — had been lurking outside the bookshop unnerved him and he looked around suspiciously. Only a few leaves shook on the branches of the surrounding trees.

"Ask what we should do next," said Duck impatiently, sensing his hesitation. She reached out to pet the dog, which nudged her hand with its nose, urging her to continue. Its ears felt like warm silky gloves and she caressed them lovingly.

"OK, but this has to be quick," he said, glancing at his watch.

Psalmamazar held the page open as Blake repeated Duck's question: "What should we do next?"

He stared at the page for what seemed like ages, but no new message or instruction appeared. The page remained blank.

"Nothing," he said at last, giving up hope. "There's nothing there. I'm not very good at this."

"Maybe the book can't predict the future," said Duck. "Maybe we have to figure it out for ourselves…"

But that wasn't true. The book had already made plenty of predictions. If nothing else, Jolyon had told them Endymion Spring 's paper contained an answer to everything. It just didn't want to help them right now.

Blake felt let down by this realization. There were so many questions that needed answering, so many things he needed to know, and yet the book remained frustratingly silent.

"That's it," he said suddenly, snapping his fingers. "Sometimes it's harder to know the question than to find an answer."

"Huh?" said Duck, puzzled.

"It's something Professor Jolyon told me," he said. "I can't ask vague questions like 'What will happen in the future?' That's too general. I need to be more specific. Maybe then the book can help us."

He took a moment to phrase the question in his mind and asked in a clearer, more confident tone, "Where is the blank book I found in the library on Tuesday afternoon?"

Duck looked up, curious. Psalmanazar, however, had tightened his grip on the book. His knuckles gleamed, bone-white between the layers of grime. What had caused the change? Blake gave him a sideways look, but the man's face was locked on the book, inscrutable.

The boy followed his eyes down to the page.

"I can see something coming," he whispered, "but it's really faint. I can't make it out."

He peered closer. His mouth felt dry. "Great, it's another riddle," he despaired when at last he could distinguish the words.

"Quick, read it to me," said Duck. "I'm good at these things. I can help you."

Blake paused for a moment and then, unable to figure out the meaning on his own, recited the lines aloud. They seemed so simple, yet complex:

"The Present has passed — the Past has gone

The Future will come — once Two become One."

He groaned. "This poem's even more baffling than the first one I saw," he said.

Duck, however, was repeating the words to herself over and over again, memorizing them. Her lips moved and her nose twitched — like a rabbit nibbling the air. Blake stared at her and then at the book, willing himself to see through the words, but he couldn't.

"I don't get it," he said at last, a fringe of dark hair flopping over his eyes.

She held up a hand to silence him. "I think I do."

The words were so soft, Blake almost didn't hear them.

"What?"

"Well, I don't understand all of it," she corrected herself as he turned to her in disbelief, "But I get the gist of it. At least, I think I know how we're supposed to locate the Last Book."

"Huh?" said Blake, astounded. "How?"

"Just read the poem again," she said, "but this time spell the words as you say them."

Blake shook his head. "What difference does that make?"

"It all depends on how you spell the past," she said, sphinx-like. "It makes all the difference in the world."

She started to pet the dog again. "Just do it," she commanded.

Blake did as he was told. Even with Duck's advice the words didn't make much sense. The present, past and future were hopelessly entangled, like a knot. Try as he might, he couldn't tease them apart.

"I still don't get it," he said.

"Well, the book we're looking at now is falling apart," she pointed out as yet more bits of paper fluttered out from between Psalmanazar's fingers and fell to the ground like tattered moths. "So its usefulness has passed or is passing as we speak. That explains the first bit: the present has passed."

Blake regarded her with suspicion.

"And you don't have the volume you found in the library, so that's the second," she continued. "The past has gone. It can't tell you anything more specific than that. This leaves the Last Book, the one Professor Jolyon told us about, the most powerful book of all. That's the one still waiting for us — once we bring the other two books together!"

She looked up, expecting to be congratulated, but Blake frowned.

"But how are we going to do that?" he whined. "We don't even know where the first book is. It's pointless!" He kicked at the ground, sending a twig flying. It snapped like a bone.

"I know," answered his sister vaguely, "but I'm sure we'll find it soon."

Unconvinced, Blake looked at his watch. "Come on, we'd better go. Mum will be furious."

"Ask who the Person in Shadow is, first," she said.

Blake went pale. His heart leaped into his mouth. This was one question he didn't want answered. He turned to her, aghast.

"Go on," she said. "It's the obvious thing to do." She continued combing her fingers through the dog's hair, pretending not to be afraid.

Blake nodded, but didn't say anything. The trees around him seemed to inch closer, clutching each other with their thin branches. The remaining leaves shivered.

Blake bit his lip, but found himself creeping closer to the blank paper, which Psalmanazar pinned open with his fingers. The corner of a page flickered.

Taking a deep breath, Blake then said the words that frightened him most: "Shw me the face of the Person in Shadow."

Immediately he closed his eyes, afraid of what he would see once he opened them. It was like blowing out the candles on a birthday cake and wishing for something not to come true. He waited for a few seconds and then, slowly, prized his eyes open.

He could feel his courage trickling down his spine like a melting icicle.

He watched, appalled, as a mass of dark ink swirled over the page like dye unraveling in a glass of water, at war with the white paper. The battle seemed to last forever, a tug-of-war between light and shade, but eventually the page was coated completely in shadow — like an eclipse. Then, from the darkness, a figure began to emerge, a shape that grew larger, but no more distinct. It was like a mask or silhouette, concealing more than it revealed.

Despite his fear, Blake peered closer.

He sensed that he was looking into the face of evil, but could not tell who — or what — it was. The shadow seemed to reach out and engulf him. His heart and lungs filled with cold. His pupils dilated like holes in thin ice. He could not lift his eyes from the paper.

All of a sudden, the dog growled and Psalmanazar let the bookdrop…just at the moment Blake thought he could recognize the face. The volume fell to the ground, where it collapsed in a heap of paper. The spell was broken.

"What happened?" asked Blake in a petrified whisper.

The low rumble in the dog's throat revved into a snarl as, hackles raised, it crept stealthily in front of Duck, shielding her with its body, its thin armor of ribs.

From behind him, Blake heard sounds of activity and turned to see joggers and dog-walkers crossing the bridge towards the towpath. Life was going on as usual.

"I don't understand," he said, fearfully. 'What's wrong?"

"It's you," said Duck at last, her voice trembling. "Something came over you. You turned really pale all of a sudden. There was a gleam in your eye. What did the book show you?"

Helplessly, Blake turned to Psalmanazar, who refused to meet his gaze. He was staring into the distance as if impatient to be off.

"There was a face," he said faintly. "In the shadow. Only I don't know who it was. It could have been anyone."

He couldn't bring himself to say more. He shivered, as though a cloud had blotted out the sun and coated the land in shadow. A touch of winter gripped the air.

The group stood motionlessly for a while, but finally Duck broke the silence. "I want to go home."

Blake nodded. He couldn't wait to get as far away from the clearing as possible. Still numb with fear, he reached down to pick up the remnants of Psalmanazar's book, which had been damaged even more in its fall. The spine had cracked and several pages lay scattered and torn on the ground. The boards felt curiously lifeless and empty in his hands, as though he was holding the memory — or ghost — of a book.

"Oh, Psalmanazar, what have I done?" he despaired when he realized the magical paper had slipped out too. He twirled round in a panic.

Then he saw it. There, in the trees, was a large sheet of blank paper, caught like a kite in a clutch of branches. He ran over to untangle it.

A flutter of hope passed through him as he once again touched Endymion Spring 's paper. Despite its unwieldy size, it folded naturally into a series of much smaller pages, like a miniature book that fitted neatly into the palm of his hand.

He hurried over to Psalmanazar. The man, however refused to take it. Instead, he gently folded Blake's fingers over the edges of the booklet. The gesture was clear: Blake was meant to keep it.

Confused, Blake slipped the paper into his pocket. "Um, thanks," he murmured, unsure what else to say. He felt as though he had inherited a great responsibility. Even so, his heart was beating rapidly, an unmistakable buzz running through his veins. In exchange, he handed the man the dog's bandanna, which Psalmanazar promptly tied round the animal's grizzled neck.

As they were about to depart, Duck gripped her brother's arm. "There's something we forgot to ask the book," she said. "What's the name of Psalmanazar's dog?"

Blake was tempted to laugh, but a weak, tremulous voice piped behind them: "It's Alice."

Both children spun round, startled.

Psalmanazar was smiling at them sheepishly, obviously ill at ease with his newly discovered voice. "She was burrowing down a rabbit hole," he continued, his throat rusty and sore. "It seemed right somehow."

Duck and Blake stared at him doubtfully for a moment, disbelieving what they'd heard; then, when no further sound was forthcoming, they turned and started the long trek back to the city.

The walked the rest of the way in silence, thinking exactly the same thing: there was something oddly familiar about Psalmanazar's voice, something that made it sound like an echo of a voice they had heard before. But they didn't mention their suspicions to each other. His silence had been contagious.

16

Blake expected to see a crush of police cars when he rounded the bend into Millstone Lane. He expected to find television cameras pointed at their front door and neighbors telling reporters how the foreign children had disappeared without a trace. Yet there was nothing. No megaphones, no television crews and no emergency tape cordoning off the front garden. The street was empty. Most of the people had left for work, their cars gone, the milk bottles taken in. It was as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

Blake checked his watch. They had been gone nearly two hours…two hours too long. He was worried how their mother would react. Each step brought them a little bit closer to the inevitable argument. Blake braced himself. He was no longer a hero in pursuit of a magical book, but a boy in trouble for sneaking out.

"Remember what I told you," said Duck, sensing his anxiety. "You caught me sneaking out of the house. Whatever you do, don't mention Psalmanazar or the blank book. She'll never understand."

She'd been rehearsing the same excuse since they were within sight of the main road. She liked to take control whenever they were near home; it must be a female trait in his family. Well, she could shoulder all the blame if she wanted, he thought; he didn't mind.

He followed her up the garden path and inserted the key in the lock. He opened the door very slowly. It was like peeling back a plaster to see if the wound beneath had healed or was still inflamed and sore.

He got a nasty shock. His mother was slumped on the bottom step of the staircase facing the door. A rag doll. For one fearful moment, he thought she had collapsed, but then she looked up at him with tired, swollen eyes and his heart caved in inside him. They were in more than ordinary trouble.

"Um," he said, not knowing where to begin.

His mother raised an eyebrow, waiting for more.

"Um," he faltered again, feeling his pulse quicken.

"It's all my fault," interjected Duck suddenly. "I tried to run away, but Blake came after me and convinced me to come back. I didn't want to!"

She spoke in a great rush of words, as though she were afraid the truth might recoil inside her if she paused or hesitated.

Blake listened to her, astonished, and then caught his mother looking at him for corroboration, testing him with one of her quizzical eyebrows. He glanced at Duck, who was staring straight ahead, like a wall. There was a slight flicker in the corner of her eye, but it could have been a wink, a tear of even an angry twitch. He nodded unconvincingly.

His mother swore.

There was an uncomfortable silence; then Juliet Winters let out a long sigh. "What am I to do with you?" she despaired at last.

Duck ground the edges of her boots together, while Blake studied the steps behind his mother's back. In his mind, he wanted to flee upstairs and, like the book, disappear.

"Do you realize how worried I was?" his mother said, her voice little more than a growl. "What on earth made you go out without telling me? Where were you anyway?" She picked at him with her eyes — his muddy jeans and tousled hair — and Blake turned away, his cheeks reddening. "You smell like smoke. What were you doing?"

"I'm sorry," he said weakly.

"You're sorry?" she scoffed. 'Is that all?" She stared up at the ceiling and swore.

Blake closed his eyes, blood hammering in his head, and tried to block out the next assault of words.

"I thought that you, Blake, would have been more responsible than this," she said in a chilling tone. "A different country, a fabulous city, a new chance. You could have learned so much. Yet all I get from you is trouble — from both of you!" She glared at them each in turn, her eyes livid and sore. "First, disappearing at night, and now this morning. What are you up to? What game are you playing at?"

Neither child said anything. A tangle of emotions tore at Blake's throat. He was tempted to confess everything — to tell her about Endymion Spring, the Last Book and even the Person in Shadow — but he was silenced by her next comment.

"Do you want me to send you home?"

"Yes," said Blake before he could stop himself.

Duck turned to him instantly in alarm, and he placed a protective hand over his pocket, which contained the sheet of Psalmanazar's paper.

"No," he said, confused.

His mother eyed him savagely. "Well, which is it?" she snapped. "Your father or me?"

Blake felt the ground open beneath him and tried desperately to prevent himself from tumbling. The clock on the hall table ticked down the seconds, waiting for his response. He didn't know what to say. It was almost as if his mother wanted him to choose his father.

"I don't know," he choked at last. "I mean yes…I mean no…I mean…I mean…I don't know what I mean! I just want you and Dad to be together again, the way you were before you started working all the time and he gave up his job to be with us!"

His mother remained silent for a long, dreadful moment, Blake's hands were trembling and, to hide his feelings, he tightened them into fists.

"Is that what you assumed?" she said at last. Her voice was different. Beaten, unemotional. "Well, perhaps we should have told you."

Blake's knees went weak.

It was then that he learned the truth. His father had lost his job several months ago and she was working extra hard to keep them all together. Blake pressed his fingernails deep into his skin until they formed bruised pruple moons in the palms of his hands. He was shivering.

His mother noticed his reaction and said, "Honestly, Blake, you shouldn't go running off like that. You scared me. Anything could have happened to you. I'd be lost without you — without both of you."

He barely heard the words she utterednext. She sounded just like a child. "Please, I don't want to lose you too."

Instinctively he moved closer and put his arms round her.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, and this time he really meant it.

17

Everything after than happened in a blur. His mother told them to get ready, she needed to spend the rest of the day in the Bodleian Libaray. "I really must get some work done."

Obediently, Duck and Blake trudged upstairs.

In the bathroom, Blake studied his reflection in the mirror and frowned. What could Endymion Spring have seen in him? He wasn't the heroic type. He was just a scrawny kid with ribs like xylophones and irregular eyes that never looked anyone in the face. They had the unnerving ability to change color according to his mood: pale blue when he was worried or upset, but darkening when he was angry. His dad likened them to wet pebbles. He wished his dad were here now to describe them; they were an enigmatic shade.

He scrubbed his face and patted his hair into place, trying to erase his feelings of doubt and failure, and then returned to his room to change into cleaner clothes.

He was examining the paper dragon, turning it over and over in his hands, comparing it with the section of Psalmanazar's book (they were a perfect match), when he heard his mother approaching. Hastily, he concealed the dragon behind his pillow and grabbed his knapsack, pretending to look busy.

"OK, let's go," she said. "I'm going to take you to the college library, where Mrs. Richards can keep an eye on you. You're not to go off exploring without my permission. Have I made myself clear?"

Dutifully, Blake nodded and got up. He barely had time to stuff the wad of Psalmanazar's folded paper in his pocket before she marched him out of the room. He almost collided with Duck in the hall. She gave him a fleeting glance, but Blake ignored her and hurried down the stairs, still feeling bruised from the morning's proceedings.

He rushed out of the door without waiting for either his mother of sister to catch up.

His mother led them directly to the library, where she chose their seats for them: right next to the office. Paula Richards, however, was darting back and forth along the corridor, preparing for an invasion of the Ex Libris Society, whose members had requested a chance to peruse the college's collections.

She glanced at the children each time she passed by, but didn't pause to speak or smile; she clearly had other things on her mind. Blake wondered privately if she suspected him of snooping around the library the other night and damaging the books on the floor. Her expression had little warmth in it.

He opened his knapsack and pulled out the worksheets his teacher had given him to complete during his absence. So far he had done his best to ignore them, but now his mother had warned him that she would check his assignments each night — to make sure he didn't fall even further behind. Duck, of course, had finished all of her homework ages ago.

He propped his elbows on the table and tried to concentrate. It was difficult. Duck was reading over his shoulder, tapping her fingers lightly on the back of his chair. He could feel the vibrations crawling all over him like a spider.

"Go away," he said, brushing away her hand.

"I can help you."

"I don't need your help." He stared at the words without seeing them. "Don't you think you've caused enough trouble already?"

Duck hovered for a moment and then said condescendingly, "Well, if you don't need me, I'll see what else I can find out about Endymion Spring."

Her words stung and it took every ounce of his willpower for Blake not to retaliate. He buried his head in his hands and stared fiercely at the words in front of him. Identify the grammatical mistakes in the following paragraphs…He groaned, then began to circle all the errors he could find.

Five minutes later, he looked up. Who cared about split infinitives and dangling modifiers when you had a whole library full of books around you, each tempting you with its secret knowledge? He scanned the rows of shelves. Who knew what sorts of information these books contained? He couldn't resist: he got up to take a closer look.

His mother had dumped them deep in the middle of the history section and each step carried him back a decade or two in time. There were fat volumes and thin, old books and new. The past, it seemed, was an unsolvable mystery, constantly being rewritten.

One of the books grabbed his attention. Unlike the others, it was a cream-colored volume with red silk ribbon tied round its body like a belt. It didn't have a title on its cover, but when he opened it, he saw the word Bestiary printed on the front page in fancy letters that reminded him of seahorses. He took it back to his desk.

Inside were lots of illustrations. Bizarre beasts with blue and silver scales, golden fur and elaborate tongues streaming from their mouths like banners stared out at him like exhibits in a medieval freak show. Some were familiar — hyenas, lions, pelicans and elephants — but many more were strange hybrids with horselike bodies, colossal wings and razor-sharp talons. He'd never encountered anything like them before. With any luck, they'd be extinct by now.

He turned the pages slowly. Surrounding the creatures were short descriptions of their characteristics and attributes. These were written in the same spiky lettering, which he found hard to decipher, but gradually he came to realize that some of the animals were dangerous, while others, like the unicorn, had beneficial qualities: restorative powers and magical properties.

He flicked to a separate section — on dragons — and stopped.

On the page if front of him were four trees, and in each tree a well-camouflaged dragon. They were painted bright green, glossy gold, deep red and silver to coincide with the passing seasons. The fourth was almost invisible, barely discernible against its wintry background. He couldn't believe his eyes: they were just like the creature he'd imagined the night before, the dragon in the tree…the animal Psalmanazar's book had revealed to him only that morning. His heart thudded inside him.

He studied the inscription more carefully:

A Leafdragon ys that single creature whose skynne ys believed to contayne the twofoulde propyrties of immortalitee and wisdom, unknowne to manne since Eve dede eat of that moste sacryd forboden Tree. It atchievyth a cloke of invisibilitie, out of sighte of manne, by chaungyng colour accordyng to the sesons of the yeer; yet should manne or his kynde spotte such a beaste, shall he be granted powyrs like unto God and knowlydge bothe Good and Evill…

A shiver of excitement ran through him. The Leafdragon sounded almost exactly like the Last Book Jolyon had told them about — the power Fust had sold his soul to possess. Could the two be related? Did this dragon have something to do with the magical book he had found?

He glanced up and down the corridor, wondering if Duck would know, but he couldn't see her anywhere. She had disappeared.

Grabbing his knapsack, he went to look for her.

He filed past the philosophy section and entered the Mandeville Room, full of old maps and

ancient atlases, but his sister was nowhere to be seen.

He was about to creep upstairs, to see if she had gone up to the gallery, when a hand clasped him on the shoulder. He turned around. It was Paula Richards.

"Where do you think you're going?" she said firmly.

He pointed towards the gallery.

"No, I don't think so, Blake," she said. "Not today. It's off-limits. You're not to go causing trouble while the members of the Ex Libris Society are consulting the St. Jerome Codex." She indicated the glass cabinet on the landing halfway up the staircase and wagged her finger.

Blake blushed guiltily and turned away. Then, quite by chance, he spotted Duck dashing furtively across the lawn outside, heading towards the cloisters. What was she doing?

Luckily, they were interrupted by Mephistopheles, who had managed to sneak inside the library again and now tried to dodge past the librarian's legs. "Oh no, you don't!" she roared, promptly giving chase. "You're not supposed to be in here either!"

The cat made a game of her ferocity and scrambled up the stairs, followed by Mrs. Richards.

Suddenly unsupervised, Blake rushed to the door. A frizzy-haired assistant was busily filing slips behind the main desk, her fingers slipping through a card catalog like caterpillars on a treadmill. She was too preoccupied to take any notice. As silently as he could, Blake opened the door and slipped out.

Duck was easy to find. She was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the enclosed garden next to the Old Library, dwarfed by the enormous Jabberwock tree, which spread its coppery boughs high above her like large wings. She looked so small and vulnerable in her bright yellow raincoat that he felt an impulse to protect her. He stepped through an archway and walked across the cloistered lawn towards her.

He stopped. A small book lay open before her — a large white butterfly sunning itself on the grass. She was staring at it intently, lost in thought. His heart knocked against his ribs. Duck had found the blank book!

"What? How?" He stood above her, unable to speak properly. An unexpected surge of anger and jealousy rose in his throat.

"I was going to tell you," she said, "but I didn't know how."

His cheeks exploded, red with rage.

"I meant to tell you," she began again, wiping her nose on her sleeve, "but the longer I had it the more I wanted to solve the mystery by myself."

She lifted her face and he saw himself reflected in her large eyes — a silhouette blocking out the sun.

He didn't know what to say. He was fizzing with surprise and annoyance, but also with relief. More than anything, he wanted to old the blank book again and feel the pages coursing through his fingers. He tried to make himself calm.

"How long have you had it?" he said finally, sitting down beside her.

"I went to fetch it after you found it," she sniffed. "You went to the Porter's Lodge, remember? It only took a minute. It was right where you'd left it. I wanted to know why you wouldn't let me see it."

She flipped through the pages, all of which, Blake could see, were blank.

"I can't find any riddles," she said. "I've been through it hundreds of times. I've held it up to the light; I've considered using lemon juice to reveal any secret messages; I've even tried spilling ink on it; but nothing works. Ink doesn't stick to the paper. The words are invisible. How do you read it?"

She looked up at him and, for the first time in his life, he realized that she actually needed to learn something from him.

The trouble was, he didn't know how to explain it.

"I don't know," he admitted truthfully. "The words just find you. That's the only way I can describe it."

He wondered whether she would laugh at him, but she didn't. She smiled sadly and held out the book to him. "It's yours," she said.

He felt the blood surge through his fingers as soon as he touched it. All of the anger and jealousy faded inside him. An instant connection to Endymion Spring, the printer's devil who had handled it so long ago, entered him. His skin tingled.

The volume realigned itself in his hand, just as it had done before, and the pages started to flicker, as if preparing to tell him its story.

His heart leaped with excitement.

Duck looked from her brother to the book expectantly. "It didn't do that for me," she said enviously.

Blake wasn't listening. A page had opened right in front of him, in the center of the volume. He held his breath, convinced the first riddle he had seen would reappear. But nothing was there. The paper was blank.

"Can't you seen anything?" asked Duck, sensing his disappointment.

He shook his head, unable to respond.

"Are you sure it's the right page? Perhaps if you—"

"of course it's the right page!" he shouted irritably. "It's no good! We're too late! I should never have let it out of my sight!" His voice reverberated around the cloistered passageways.

Annoyed, he slammed the book shut, but it immediately reopened, like a reflex. Once again, it showed him the blank page.

"Look!" said Duck suddenly.

At the heart of the book, where the sheets of paper had been bound together, a pale loop of thread, like a dragonfly wing, was coming loose.

"No! Don't pull it," he cried, seeing her fingers veering towards it. Very gently, he tugged at the thread — more like a sinew or a fine loop of catgut than string — and watched, amazed, as it came undone at his touch.

"What's happening?" gasped Duck. Her breath tunneled in his ear.

"I don't know."

"Do you think the book is falling apart?"

"No. I don't think so. This is different."

They stared in silence as a second and then a third knot pushed their way up from the spine of the book, like blossoming flowers.

Suddenly Duck had an idea.

"Quick. Do you have the page Psalmanazar gave you?"

"Why?"

"Because the riddle said that two books have to come together to find the third. Maybe that's what's happening now…Maybe you're supposed to bring the pieces of the puzzle together."

"Maybe," replied Blake, unconvinced. His heart, however, was beating very fast and his hand shook as he reached into his pocket and pulled out the neatly folded sheet of paper. It nestled in his palm like a small booklet, then began to quiver as he brought it closer to the book. He laid it carefully inside. It fitted perfectly.

Immediately, the loose threads began to worm their way through the new folds of paper, stitching Psalmanazar's page into the leather-bound volume. Like magic, they disappeared into the central gutter and the book clamped shut with a vicious, springlike motion, its restoration complete.

Like an oyster guarding its pearl, the book remained closed.

"So that's that," said Blake apprehensively.

"I bet it's going to show us the Last Book next," said Duck excitedly. She wriggled beside him.

Blake was more cautious. "I don't know. I expected the Last Book to look different somehow. Larger or more impressive."

He eyed the battered brown book dubiously and then, just when he was about to give up hope, it sprung to life and the pages inside spun round like a whirligig. A light breeze fanned his cheek.

Eventually the blur of paper subsided and a suddenly still, silent page lay open in front of him. Blake looked down expectantly, wondering what he would see.

His blood turned to ice.

The page in front of him was deep black, almost impenetrably so, as though a cloak of night had descended over the book and all it contained. Only a cusp of brightness like a gibbous moon shone through the upper right-hand corner of the paper.

Blake inhaled deeply.

Written in the darkness beneath were three words, etched in white:

18

"What does it mean?" gasped Duck, frightened.

"I don't know," Blake said, glancing over his shoulder at the dark colonnaded passages all around them. "Maybe the book senses something's wrong. I think it's a warning of some kind."

The tree behind them shivered slightly and dappled the ground with restless shadows. To their right stood the bolted door of the Old Library, its lion's teeth set in a silent roar. A gallery of gargoyles peered at them from the chapel roof, pulling nasty faces.

A noise like a hundred birds taking flight all at once rose from a nearby window, as applause greeted the end of a conference paper being delivered somewhere in the college.

Suddenly, Blake turned back to his sister. "Hold on. Are you telling me you can see this?"

"Yeah, but that's to Endymion Spring, is it?" she said uncertainly, her eyes wide with fear.

"No, I don't think so." Blake returned his gaze to the black page, where the ghostly message sent another chill through him. "Maybe the Person in Shadow is communicating with us somehow. Maybe he can see us right now."

"But that's impossible," said Duck. "Nobody knew I had the book. I didn't tell anyone, I swear!"

"Well, the Person in Shadow certainly knows we've got it now," he said seriously. "And I bet he or she'll be coming to us soon to get it."

"What are we going to do?" squealed Duck, beginning to panic.

Blake went very quiet. "I don't know."

"We could tell Professor Jolyon," she suggested. "Maybe he can help us."

Blake looked doubtful. "I don’t think that's such a great idea."

"Why?"

"Because his office is up there," he said, pointing at the tower of the Old Library, which rose above them. Its upper windows were a mirror of sunlit glass, reflecting the dark silver storm clouds slowly approaching. "He could be watching us right now."

Duck swallowed deeply.

"I don't know," he said again, shudders crawling all over him. "I don't know who we can trust."

The page in front of him flickered.

"Hey, wait a minute," said Duck. She ran a pearly pink finger over the surface of the paper and turned over one of the corners.

Blake, fearing she was going to try to rip out the infected sheet, raised a hand to stop her.

"No, look at this corner," she said eagerly. "There's still a piece of the book missing." She lifted the edge of the paper with her fingernail and he saw what she meant: the round moon shape was where someone had torn off a corner of the page. It was a small scar revealing the perfect, intact sheet beneath.

"How did that happen?" he asked, dismayed. "Did you do it?"

Duck was offended. "Of course not! It's the page Psalmanazar gave you. Maybe he put a curse on it — or kept part of it for himself."

Her imagination took off. "Maybe he's using it to spy on us!"

He scrunched up his face. "But that's impossible," he said. "Books don't work that way."

"Come on!" she remarked. "This book is hardly normal, is it? Perhaps the paper has other properties, ones we don't know about yet."

She thought about it for a while. Her eyes widened.

"Maybe the Person in Shadow can see what we're doing whenever we open the book," she said hurriedly. "Maybe someone tore the section from the black page a long time ago and kept it as an eye into the book, just waiting for you to find it. Maybe you accidentally communicated something when you discovered Endymion Spring the other day — and that's why you were followed to the library…"

Duck was about to enlarge on the idea when a shadow stole across the lawn, creeping over them. Blake just managed to conceal the book in his knapsack before looking up.

Paula Richards was glaring down at them angrily.

"There you are," she hollered. "I've been searching for you everywhere. You're worse than the cat!"

She clapped her hands impatiently and they both rose to their feet, wiping the grass stains from their knees. "I really don't have time for this. I promised your mother I'd keep my eye on you."

Like criminals, they followed her back to the Library.

A tall, familiar figure stood beside the table at which Blake had been working earlier. Jolyon.

Blake froze.

He eyed the professor warily: from the top of his heavily lined face to the tips of his long, inky fingers, which gripped the cream-colored book he had left open on the table. And then Blake's heart skipped a beat. It was as though all of the blood pumping through his body had suddenly reversed direction; the ground lurched beneath his feet.

The professor had a bruised black thumbnail, almost exactly the same shape as the missing corner of the book.

The old man looked up, catching Blake's open-mouthed expression. A frown forked across his brow like a stroke of lightning and Blake tightened his grip on his knapsack, protecting the book inside, unwilling to let it near the man. He glanced away, unable to hold the professor's gaze.

Jolyon, however, had seen enough. He slipped a piece of paper between the pages of the bestiary, closed the volume and pushed it gently towards Blake. Then he gestured Mrs. Richards aside.

Blake watched as they walked out of earshot. He knew they were discussing him. Jolyon pointed at the section of the library where the books had been ripped off the shelves and murmured something in her ear. The librarian shook her head and turned to look at him.

"Get to work," she admonished him quickly.

Blake glanced at the pile of worksheets awaiting his attention. For once, his homework seemed like the safest option. He was still reeling from the shock of the shadowy message in Endymion Spring's book.

Rearranging the sheets in front of him, he started circling all of the mistakes he could find, taking special pleasure in lassoing other people's errors. He didn't want to acknowledge the suspicions creeping into his mind. The black page was invading his thoughts. He'd been wrong about his father, his mother, even Duck…so perhaps he was wrong about Jolyon, too. Perhaps there really was no one he could trust.

He kept his head down and didn't look up once — not when Paula Richards, carrying a heavy stack of books, took up a post close beside him, nor when Jolyon, leaving the library, brushed against him like a shadow.

Blake felt like one of the animals trapped in the bestiary. He and Duck were seated at opposite ends of the dark polished table, unable to talk, let alone pass notes. Occasionally, Mrs. Richards scratched something in her notepad and he shuffled uneasily. Her pen made a disapproving sound as it scraped against the paper, and he imagined her ticking a box next to some new fault or crime he had committed.

The black page was tugging at his imagination, worrying him. The need to know whether the words had changed or whether a new message was waiting for him was irresistible. But there was no escaping Paula Richards's gaze. Magnified by her glasses, her usually sympathetic green eyes resembled Venus flytraps — and he was the fly slowly being devoured in the cage of her lashes.

Drumming his pencil on his worksheets, he looked around. A small pile of books was growing near him as Paula Richards scanned various reference works to do with Christina Rossetti, the poet Diana Bentley had mentioned at the college dinner. One of the volumes had devilish goblins and demons clawing up and down its gold spine, while another had a plain plum-colored wrapper with ink blots on the leather. Paula Richards had left this propped open and he could just make out tiny scribbles in the margin — tight, miniscule words that looked like old-fashioned embroidery.

Not far from his elbow was the bestiary Jolyon had marked with his slip of paper. Slowly, so that Paula Richards could not see, he inched his fingers towards it and dragged the smooth white volume towards him.

Duck was watching him intently. Fortunately, the librarian was so engrossed in her research, she didn't notice.

Blake opened the book as casually as he could.

Jolyon hadn't been reading the entry of Leafdragons, but a different section altogether. A shudder of recognition passed through him: Psalmanazar. He blinked. No, it was a different word, but strangely similar: Salamander. Next to it was a picture of yet another tree — this time, full of snakelike branches. Each branch ended in a fanged head that was attempting to devour an apple.

Blake read the description carefully:

The Salamander, chefe among creatures, ys prooff against fyre, for it quenchyth flaumes wyth its bodie, while its skynne remaynes unscaythed. Yet beware: for thys beaste contaynes a secrete vennom, whych roted in trees will soure its fruit or releessed in a sprynge will polute its water and so cause an idyvyduall to die…

Blake scowled, puzzled. Why had Jolyon tried to alert him to this? The salamander sounded like a devious, untrustworthy beast, but it looked nothing like the dragon he had seen. Then he noticed the bookmark dividing the Salamander from its nearest alphabetical cousins, the Raven and Sawfish.

He turned it over and was even more surprised by what he saw. He read it twice before he understood it.

Blake started breathing faster and faster. Jolyon must have left this here for him to find. He wanted Blake to be at a lecture tomorrow night, but why? Blake couldn't work out what the professor was after.

His mind raced. Going to the talk would give him a chance to learn more about the origins of the society and perhaps find out who had found the blank book all those years ago. Not only that; it might tell him who had lusted after it, whose heart was already black. His mouth felt dry as he considered the possibilities.

Duck was struggling to see the piece of paper in his hands, and he flashed it in her direction, careful not to let Paula Richards notice. She read the message quickly and a broad grin spread across her face.

He knew exactly what that expression meant: it meant they had to sneak into AllSoulsCollege, whether or not they had their mother's permission. It was an opportunity to uncover the past and perhaps solve the mystery for themselves.

Getting permission was not as difficult as they anticipated.

Juliet Winters returned from the Bodleian Library in a foul mood. This time she was annoyed with the librarians and not with them. Another scholar had requested the set of Faust books she needed to consult and she'd spent most of the afternoon trying to track them down.

"Who'd have thought so many people would be interested in Faust all of a sudden?" she said wearily as they waited for the bus. "It not only means that I'm behind schedule, but there's also a chance someone else is researching the same topic. I'm going to have to push even harder to publish my findings first." She closed her eyes and kneaded her brow with her fingertips.

The bus wheezed to a halt beside them and Juliet Winters piled into a seat near the middle. Duck and Blake positioned themselves behind her — like good and bad angels, one on either shoulder.

"If you need some extra time, we don't mind," said Duck obligingly at the first set of traffic lights. "We've been invited to a lecture. We could go to that while you work in the library tomorrow night."

She was using her most soothing voice, like a hypnotist, to lull their mother into a false sense of security. Blake could not tell whether or not it was working. Her eyes were closed.

"We promise to be good."

That did it. Their mother was instantly awake.

"What lecture is it?" she asked, her suspicions aroused.

"Sir Giles Bentley's. On collecting books."

"You mentioned it the other day," Blake added quickly. "You told us we could go."

"I did nothing of the sort."

Blake held out the invitation for her inspection.

Juliet Winters frowned. "Why are you interested in that all of a sudden?"

"Professor Jolyon thought we might be curious," said Blake. "Besides, Duck wants to ask some questions."

"Sir Giles?" repeated his mother warily, scowling at the thick piece of paper. "I'm not sure. All Souls is no place for kids. Plus, it's late at night."

"But we've been invited!" protested Duck. "We can't let Professor Jolyon down. He's relying on us."

"Hmm, I wonder," said their mother, still not convinced.

The bus swerved sharply to avoid an old man teetering on an even older bicycle, and she lost the thread of her argument.

"I promise to look after Duck," said Blake, noticing they were approaching Millstone Lane. He reached out to press the button for the next stop. "We could meet you outside the Bodleian Library afterwards. It's not too late. Besides, Professor Jolyon will be there. He'll be our babysitter for the night."

He gave her a cheesy grin, but Duck tapped him on the elbow, warning him not to overdo it.

"Well, I don't know," murmured their mother sleepily as the bus ground to a halt and the doors opened. "I could certainly do with some more time to work, plus the Bodleian is advertising late hours this week, but…"

Blake knew he was almost there. One more push ought to do it. "Just think of how much you'll accomplish," he reminded her.

"OK, I suppose so," said Juliet Winters, still with misgivings. "Especially if Jolyon has invited you."

"Thanks. You're the greatest!"

They both ran towards the house, smiling; but she was frowning. "Are you sure you'll be all right?" she called out, perhaps remembering the trouble they'd put her to that morning. "I don't like the idea of leaving you alone."

"Don't worry," the children chimed together. "Nothing can possibly go wrong."

That night, while their mother worked, Duck and Blake met in Blake's bedroom.

Blake knew what he had to do, but he was reluctant to go through with the procedure. It was a rite he didn't want to perform. The paper dragon was too beautiful, too intricate, to destroy; and yet, he needed to follow the instructions in Psalmanazar's book precisely and bring all the parts of the blank book together. The dragon was just one more piece of the puzzle.

With a heavy heart, he took the beast from behind the pillow, where he had left it, and started to unfold its many scales. The creases quickly disappeared, as if ironed by his touch, and soon the dragon was transformed into an enormous sheet of blank white paper, made from innumberable fine membranes of smooth skin. They flapped in the air, a gentle sail. Alive.

Feeling more confident, Blake folded the paper until it formed a small quire that fitted neatly in the palm of his hand. He then slipped it inside the leather volume and closed the covers, waiting for Endymion Spring to perform its magic. He could feel the book vibrating slightly between his fingers as the invisible threads began once more to weave the pages together.

And then it was over. The book lay still.

"This is it," he whispered as he opened the cover. With trembling fingers, he turned the pages, impatient to know what the book would show him.

Nothing. The pages were blank — apart from the patch of darkness in the middle of the book, where the Person in Shadow's warning still haunted him with its three terrifying words.

"I am watching," read Duck disappointedly. She sat back on her heels and sighed. "Nothing's changed. What are we going to do now?"

Blake shook his head, but remained silent. Something else had appeared on the page in front of him, something his sister couldn't see. He nearly dropped the book.

The Sun must look the Shadow in the Eye

The forfeit the Book lest one Half die.

The Lesion of Darkness cannot be healed

Until, with Child's Blood, the Whole is sealed.

These are the Words of Endymion Spring.

Bring only the Insight the Inside brings.

Two words, in particular, grabbed his attention and refused to let go. They clutched at his throat and echoed in his mind like a horrible refrain: child's blood, child's blood, child's blood…

Either he or Duck was going to die; he knew it instinctively, as though Endymion Spring had entered the room and whispered it in his ear.

"What's wrong?" asked Duck. "You're sweating."

"It's nothing," he lied, and shook his head again to dismiss the terrible thought. "We'd better go to bed."

Some things, he felt, were better left unsaid.