The Inspector looked across at the cage, the glass box, and the crystal. Then he got a pair of opera glasses out of an inner pocket and looked through those. He could still see nothing out of order. Surely, he told himself, the Sentinels would know if something had gone amiss?
He stepped back outside the clock face and cleared his throat.
"All in order, well done, you Sentinels," he said. "The watchwords for the next Inspector will be 'Thistle, palm, oak and yew, I'm an Inspector, honest and true.' Got that? ... excellent ... well, I'll be off."
The Twelve O'Clock Sentinel saluted. The Inspector doffed his hat once more, swiveled on one heel, and set down his transfer plate, chanting the words that would take him to the House. According to regulations, he was supposed to go via the Office of Unusual Activities on the forty-fifteenth floor and report, but he was unsettled and wanted to get straight back to the twenty-tenth floor, his own comfortable study, and a nice cup of tea.
"From dead star's gloom to bright lamp's light, back to my rooms and away from night!"
Before he could step on the plate, something small, skinny, and very black shot across the golden line, between the legs of the Twelve O'Clock Sentinel, across the Inspector's left Immaterial Boot, and onto the plate. The blue and green fruit glazed on the plate flashed and the plate, black streak and all, vanished in a puff of rather rubbery and nasty-smelling smoke.
"Alarm! Alarm!" cried the Sentinels, leaving the clock face to swarm around the vanished plate, their blades snickering in all directions as the sound of twelve impossibly loud alarm clocks rang and rang from somewhere inside their metal bodies. The Inspector shrank down before the Sentinels and started to chew on the corner of his handkerchief and sob. He knew what that black streak was. He had recognized it in a flash of terror as it sped past.
It was a line of handwritten text. The text from the fragment that was supposedly still fused in crystal, locked in the unbreakable box, inside the silver and malachite cage, glued to the surface of a dead sun and guarded by metal Sentinels.
Only now none of those things was true.
One of the fragments of the Will had escaped ... and it was all his fault.
Even worse, it had touched him, striking his flesh straight through the Immaterial Boot. So he knew what it said, and he was not allowed to know. Even more shockingly, the Will had recalled him to his real duty. For the first time in millennia he was conscious of just how badly things had gone wrong.
"Into the trust of my good Monday, I place the administration of the Lower House," the Inspector whispered. "Until such a time as the Heir or the Heir's representatives call upon Monday to relinquish any such offices, properties, rights, and appurtenances as Monday holds in trust."
The Sentinels did not understand him, or perhaps they could not even hear him over the clamoring of their internal alarms. They had spread out, uselessly searching the surface of the dead star, beams of intense light streaming from their eyes into the darkness. The star was not large ... no more than a thousand yards in diameter ... but the fragment was long gone. The Inspector knew it would already have left his rooms and gotten into the House proper.
"I have to get back," the Inspector said to himself. "The Will will need help. Transfer plate's gone, so it will have to be the long way."
He reached into his coat and pulled out a grimy and bedraggled pair of wings that were almost as tall as he was. The Inspector hadn't used them for a very long time and was surprised at the state they were in. The feathers were all yellow and askew and the pinions didn't look at all reliable. He clipped them into place on his back and took a few tentative flaps to make sure they still worked.
Distracted by his wings, the Inspector didn't notice a sudden flash of light upon the surface of the clock, or the two figures who appeared with that flash. They wore human shapes too, as was the fashion in the House. But these two were taller, thinner, and more handsome. They had on neat black frock coats over crisp white shirts with high-pointed collars and very neat neckties of somber red, a shade lighter than their dark silk waistcoats. Their top hats were sleekly black, and they carried ornate ebony sticks topped with silver knobs.
"Where do you think you're going, Inspector?" asked the taller of the two new arrivals.
The Inspector turned in shock, and his wings drooped still further.
"To report, sir!" he said weakly. "As you can see. To... to my immediate superiors... and to... to Monday's Dawn, or even Mister Monday, if he wants..."
"Mister Monday will know soon enough," said the tall gentleman. "You know who we are?"
The Inspector shook his head. They were very high up in the Firm, that was obvious from their clothes and the power he could sense. But he didn't know them, either by name or by rank.
"Are you from the sixty-hundredth floor? Mister Monday's executive office?"
The taller gentleman smiled and drew a paper from his waistcoat pocket. It unfolded itself as he held it up, and the seal upon it shone so brightly that the Inspector had to shield his face with his arm and duck his head.
"As you see, we serve a higher Master than Monday," said the gentleman. "You will come with us."
The Inspector gulped and shambled forward. One of the gentlemen swiftly pulled on a pair of snowy white gloves and snapped off the Inspector's wings. They shrank till they were no larger than a dove's wings and he put them in a buff envelope that came from nowhere. He sealed this shut with a sizzling press of his thumb. Then he handed the envelope to the Inspector. The word evidence appeared on it as the Inspector clutched it to his chest and cast nervous glances at his escorts.
Working together, the two gentlemen drew a doorway in the air with their sticks. When they'd finished, the space shimmered for a moment and then solidified into an elevator doorway, with a sliding metal grille and a bronze call button. One of the gentlemen pressed the button, and an elevator car suddenly appeared out of nowhere behind the grille.
"I'm not authorized to go in an executive elevator, not up past Records by any means, stair or lift or weird-way," gabbled the Inspector. "And I'm definitely not... not authorized to go down below the Inking Cellars."
The two gentlemen pushed back the grille and gestured for the Inspector to step into the elevator. It was lined with dark green velvet and one entire wall was covered in small bronze buttons.
"We're not going down, are we?" asked the Inspector in a small voice.
The taller gentleman smiled, a cold smile that did not reach his eyes.
He reached up and his arm clicked horribly as it stretched, growing an extra couple of yards so he could press a button on the very top right-hand side of the lift.
"There?" asked the Inspector, awed in spite of his fear. He could feel the Will's influence working away inside of him, but he knew there was no hope of trying to help it now. The words that had gotten away would have to fend for themselves. "All the way to the top?"
"Yes," said the two gentlemen in unison as they clanged shut the metal grille.
Chapter One
It was Arthur Penhaligon's first day at his new school and it was not going well. Having to start two weeks after everyone else was bad enough, but it was even worse than that. Arthur was totally and utterly new to the school. His family had just moved to the town, so he knew absolutely no one and he had none of the local knowledge that would make life easier.
Like the fact the seventh grade had a cross-country run every Monday just before lunch. Today. And it was compulsory, unless special arrangements had been made by a student's parents. In advance.