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I turned to the trapdoor. I had the lantern with me, even though it was largely unnecessary; the alternative was trusting the spiders.

Now that I knew what lay below, I was less afraid and moved more quickly down the stairs. The workshop appeared just as we’d left it, spiders glowing gently from random corners. No sign of Havelock.

Suddenly something leapt from the darkness and came stalking towards me, and I fell back with a gasp.

But it was only His Majesty, one of the luminous spiders dangling from his mouth. Judging by its frantic wriggling, it was still alive.

With a cry of disgust, I lunged forward, managing to grab the slippery cat before he melted into the shadows. He gave a hiss of protest, which had the useful effect of forcing him to drop the spider, which scurried away. It was a curious enchantment—in a revolting way, I mean—in that only the spider’s carapace was alight, not its legs, which made it appear perfectly ordinary from a distance, perhaps the flame of a small candle. Until, of course, it moved.

“How did you get down here?” I demanded. I’d shut the trapdoor behind me, I was certain. And yet wasn’t it just like His Majesty? He was adept at finding narrow passages and escape routes, even by the standards of cats. Robin had once found him on the roof at the old place, though all our doors and windows had been shut. Our best guess was that he’d somehow scrambled up the chimney like a feline Saint Nicholas.

I tossed the cat over my shoulder, which he tolerated, and tried to carry him back up the stairs, which he did not—he launched himself free with his massive paws and became one with the shadows again. Sighing, I settled for leaving the trapdoor open. I’d no idea what sort of damage cats could do to enchantments, but I guessed His Majesty would make mischief somehow, and I could only hope Havelock wouldn’t notice. Although, presumably, His Majesty had been exploring the basement long before me, and, with his usual feral logic, had already deemed it part of his territory.

I lifted the lantern and kept going. As Yannick had warned, the place grew progressively more disorganized the farther down one went. The third floor had crates stacked all the way to the ceiling, while I couldn’t even make out a pathway through the fourth.

“Absolutely appalling,” I kept muttering to myself, my horror only growing. How did anyone live like this? It was like wandering through the nest of some mad, burrowing magpie.

Each of the steep staircases hugged the stone wall, but behind the staircase connecting floors three and four, where there should have been stairs to the fifth floor, was a trapdoor. It was more severe-looking than the one in the shop, being made of a single piece of black flagstone. It had no chain, but one edge had a groove wide enough to slide my fingers into.

I gripped the flagstone and pulled, not truly expecting anything to happen. Yannick had said that the trapdoor was locked—with a spell, I assumed. I was already thinking about how I might search the other floors for the book as the flagstone rose easily.

I dropped it as if it had bitten me. Had Havelock forgotten to lock the trapdoor? Or had Yannick meant locked in a more sinister sense—effectively locked, because continuing would bring some curse down upon me?

I drew a deep breath, then lifted the flagstone and set it to one side. Beyond was a staircase just like the others, narrow and steep, leading into an uneven rectangle of shadow. Legs trembling, I lifted my lantern and descended into the darkness.

The room at the bottom of the stairs was smaller than those above, almost cozy, with a humble ceiling, low with unconcealed joists from the floor above, and an open fire that had burned down to a few embers. Bookshelves lined every wall, and the half-open doorway in the far wall seemed to lead to a bathroom; I could just glimpse the edge of a tub. The spiders were fewer in number here—I saw only three, strung up in their webs together in a corner like old friends. Most of the uneven light came from the fire and a small lamp that burned next to a couch shoved against the only wall that wasn’t occupied by bookshelves.

The hope began to form that here I might indeed find the book Valérie sought, but it went out like a snuffed flame. Because on the couch was Havelock Renard.

I fumbled my lantern, catching it just before it struck the floor. Havelock was asleep in what looked like a highly uncomfortable slump, his shoulder leaned against the arm of the couch and his head resting on his shoulder, dark hair spilling onto his sleeve. His hand was open and dangling as if to accept something, and one leg was folded beneath him. He had clearly been reading when he fell asleep, for there was a book lying on the floor below his hand, pages folded beneath its weight.

I would have fled immediately had I not noticed that he was wounded. “Havelock!” I cried, starting forward, but he didn’t wake. I was too frightened to touch him, so I picked up a book from one of the shelves and threw it at him.

I hadn’t been aiming for his head but the wall beside him; still I managed to clip his glasses, knocking them askew, which was enough to waken him with a start. He blinked at me and murmured something that sounded like “Ri?”

“You’re bleeding!” I cried, because I didn’t know how else to describe what I was seeing—blood was the least of it.

He took no notice of the horror that was his left leg. It looked like the leg of that monstrous creature I had glimpsed twice now, Havelock’s other form. It was a curve of darkness, flickering as if ember-lit from within, and yet from some angles it appeared almost normal. In addition to this, the leg was injured. Blood trickled from a deep gash by his knee and pooled on the floor.

Recognition came over his face, and he looked from me to the open trapdoor, his expression darkening. He touched one of his earrings and murmured a word.

I was whirling on my heel as soon as I understood, but I was too late, and the flagstone crashed shut, sealing me down there with him.

I turned back to him, holding the lantern between us as if it might ward him off. This was where my curiosity had led me: into the heart of the monster’s lair. What a fool I had been to imagine I should involve myself in the affairs of magicians!

“What are you going to do to me?” I croaked.

“Do?” he repeated, his forehead wrinkling. “Turn you into a sparrow and see what your charming pets make of you. Oh, don’t look at me like that. I’m not going to do anything. That panther was lurking up there. I’d rather he didn’t make himself at home.” His face went blank, and then he raised his elbow just in time to meet an explosive sneeze.

“Oh—sorry.” My hand holding the lantern trembled with relief. “He must have followed me.”

Havelock tried to rise, but his face contorted, and he fell back into the couch in a boneless slump. He’d passed out from the pain, or had lost too much blood.

“Look at the state of you!” I exclaimed, coming forward slowly, as I would with a wounded street cat likely to lash out at me. He was barefoot in billowy linen shirtsleeves and loose trousers—again looking like he’d raided some theatre company’s costume department, though the effect was more otherworldly than ridiculous. The left trouser leg had been rolled up, as if he’d made some attempt to treat whatever ungodly thing was happening to him. His strange and disorderly appearance reminded me of the chaos of the upper floors, and my irritation overrode my fear. I removed the blush-coloured scarf—one of the former tenant’s—that I’d taken to wearing around my neck and began wrapping it around his leg. It was hard to see that part of him—my vision swam with dizziness when I stared too hard.

I blinked and tried to focus on the scarf. I looped it around his knee, pulling each loop as taut as I could.

“What are you doing here?” he said, and I jumped. He’d awoken again and was watching me.