The Double-Edged Sword

Book 0: The Nowhere Chronicles

by Sarah Pinborough

Genres: Fantasy

Synopsis

'Sixteen's an interesting age: not quite a fully grown man, but not a kid either. Anything is possible when you're sixteen.' Finmere Tingewick Smith was abandoned on the steps of the Old Bailey. Under the guardianship of the austere Judge Harlequin Brown and the elderly gentlemen of Orrery House, Fin has grown up under a very strange set of rules. He spends alternate years at two very different schools and now he's tired of the constant lies to even his best friends, to hide the insanity of his double life. Neither would believe the truth! But on his sixteenth birthday, everything changes. The Judge is killed, stabbed in the chest with a double-edged sword that's disturbingly familiar, and from that moment on, Fin is catapulted into an extraordinary adventure. Through the Doorway in Fin's London, a hole in the boundaries of Existence, lies another London -- and now both are in grave danger. For the Knights of Nowhere have kidnapped the Storyholder, the keeper of the Five Eternal Stories which weave the worlds together. Because of the Knights' actions, a black storm is coming, bringing madness with it. Fin may be just 16, but he has a long, dark journey ahead of him if he is to rescue the Storyholder and save Existence!

Release date: March 30, 2017

Publisher: Gollancz

Print pages: 352

Sample

ONE

Finmere Tingewick Smith sat on the second step of the Old Bailey in the exact spot where he’d been abandoned in a small cardboard box sixteen years earlier. He sniffed, the icy November chill making his nose run. As happened every year he found himself wishing that his mother, whoever and wherever she was, had taken the plunge and actually stepped inside the building before walking out of his life forever. At least that way this annual ritual wouldn’t be quite so uncomfortable. He shivered.

Watching his breath escape in a cloud of crystal mist, a vague sense of despondency washed over him. His jeans itched from the damp that crept through from the heavy white stone beneath him and he sighed. It would probably leave a wet patch in the denim and the streets weren’t quite yet dark enough to cover it. Great. Just what he needed.

Various pairs of feet trudged by, most heeled, a few booted and some very polished, before finally a pair of well-worn but cared-for black lace-ups stopped.

‘’appy birthday, Fin.’ The voice was gruff and warm and familiar, and despite the numbness and potential wet patch that was plaguing him, Finmere smiled.

‘Hallo, Ted.’ He felt a warm glow of affection in the pit of his stomach. His birthdays, odd as they were, weren’t all bad.

‘’ere,’ said Ted, ‘’old this and I’ll light it.’

The cupcake had one blue candle standing proud from the

middle of it, same as every year, but this time the iced sponge seemed smaller – or maybe it was just that Fin had got eight centimetres taller this year. It was hard to tell. Ted sat down beside him, the smell of freshly smoked tobacco and soap cutting through the cold London air. The old man’s spotless security guard uniform always made Finmere think of lavender. He wasn’t sure why – it wasn’t as if it actually smelled of lavender. But maybe it had on that night sixteen years ago.

The candle flickered into life with the crack of the lighter, and Ted grinned. ‘Go on then, mate. Blow it out.’ His face was thinner and more lined than it had been a year before, which made Finmere’s heart tighten a little.

He took a deep breath and blew. The small light extinguished. ‘Thanks, Ted. This is great.’ The icing stuck to his clumsy fingers. He took a deep breath and started, ‘Look, we don’t have to keep doing this every year, though – you know, if it’s too much bother . . .’

‘Don’t be daft, lad! I like seeing you – don’t see enough of you as it is, things being what they are. But that’s the way of it. I just get to do as I’m told.’ He paused, the corners of his eyes wrinkling fondly. ‘I think about you all year, though, mate, not just on your birthday – don’t you ever doubt that. Now go on, tuck in.’

It was gone five and the passers-by were growing in number as the city offices spat out their workers, done with them for another day. They were all hurrying down to the Tube or running for buses, and no one noticed the odd sight of the old man in uniform and the teenager in a hoodie munching a cake on the steps of the greatest law court in the land. As he chewed, Fin wondered if it was him or Ted, or a combination of both. He thought it was probably him. He’d always been pretty good at not being noticed.

‘How are you, Ted?’ It was funny how hard it was to find the right words. They got tangled on his tongue. Part of him

wanted to give the old man a hug, but he was too old for that now, especially as they hardly ever saw each other.

‘Can’t complain, mate, can’t complain. I retire this year, you know,’ Ted said. He stared down at his shoes for a moment or two. ‘Sometimes it’s hard to remember where all the years have gone. Time’s a funny thing.’

Finmere wasn’t sure if he was supposed to say anything. Sixteen wasn’t old enough to really have a grip on the complexities of time, even when – or maybe especially when – your life was divided up into such strict chunks of it.

‘Seems almost like yesterday I found you on this very step,’ Ted continued, ‘gurgling away, wrapped up in that funny little blanket of yours. Sixteen years. Blimey.’ He looked across at Finmere. ‘You still got that blanket?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Good. It’s always good to know where you come from.’

Finmere wiped his nose with his sleeve. ‘Is that why we do this every year?’

‘Well, yes, p’rhap – and me and the boys in the big ’ouse like to see how you’re getting along, of course.’

Finmere thought of the blanket, hidden safely away where it wouldn’t get caught up in the confused muddle of his life. He supposed that once it might have smelled of his mother, and sometimes on bad days, even now that he was older, he’d get it out and press it hard against his face, searching for that elusive scent. Mainly, though, it just smelled of damp and the plastic bag it was kept in. He stared at the crowds bustling to get back to their homes and families. ‘It’s not really much to know, is it?’ he said. ‘A step and a blanket.’

Ted pulled a tin from his pocket and took a pre-rolled cigarette from it. The lighter flashed and the end burned. ‘See this tin?’ He held it out. It was battered and burnished with use, and if there’d ever been a picture on the front, it had long since worn away. ‘I’ve ’ad this tin since I was younger than you. It belonged to me dad. I never met ’im, just like

you never met your old man neither. Mine died in the Great War. ’e left this on the mantelpiece, you know, for when ’e got back.’

Ted stared at the tin for a moment longer before slipping it back into his jacket. ‘It made me mum feel like ’e’d just popped down the pub for a milk stout or two with the lads.’ He paused. ‘But ’e never came home. When she thought I was old enough, she let me ’ave it.’ He grinned, revealing crooked teeth stained from a lifetime of tobacco, and leaned in and nudged the teenager. ‘Maybe I’ll give it to you, Fin, eh? When, you know . . . it’s my time – ’ow’d you like that?’

Finmere smiled and nodded, though the thought added to the hollow ache that had been growing inside him as this birthday slowly rolled round. He couldn’t help wonder why Ted didn’t have any family of his own to give it to, why he’d want to pass something so special onto a kid he only saw once a year. Something he didn’t really understand twisted inside for the old man. Ted’s life was like a black hole in Fin’s head – he didn’t know if he was married, or whether he’d ever had children or grandchildren of his own, and if he had, what had happened to them.

Fin wiped his hands on his trousers. He wondered about a lot of things these days. Right now, for example, he was wondering whether Ted was losing the plot a little. They’d done the Great War in History, and it had finished in 1918. It was now 2010. And although the one constant in his life – whether he was at Eastfields Comprehensive or St Martin’s School for Boys – was that Maths was the most boring subject in the world and he’d rather eat rats’ heads than study it, Finmere was adept enough at subtraction to see that would make Ted just over ninety years old.

He glanced sideways at the old man. With his thinning silver hair and wrinkled face Ted could be anywhere over fifty, maybe even as old as seventy – but that didn’t make sense. If Ted was retiring this year, then he had to be in his

sixties. Mr Carr regularly snarled at Jordan Brewster, ‘I have only one more year of looking at your surly face, boy, and then the golden age of sixty-five will force our good-byes.’ As far as Fin was concerned, anything over thirty was old, but he’d never heard of anyone working until they were ninety. Maybe Ted had just got his wars mixed up. Maybe he’d meant the Second World War. He must have.

He sighed again, then tried to look cheerful, despite the fact his toes were going numb in his trainers. Ted was watching him thoughtfully and Fin could feel the pressure of his gaze.

‘You all right, son? You’re ever so quiet tonight.’

Was he all right? He supposed he was fine – in fact, he supposed he was quite lucky, compared to some. He should be more grateful, he really should. To be anything else was just bad manners. It was just— Well, he was getting a little tired of not having a clue about his life, and why it had to be lived in such a convoluted way.

He shrugged. ‘I’m fine, Ted, honest. And thanks for the cake.’ He smiled. ‘I’ll never be too old for cake – and it’s good seeing you every birthday, it really is.’

The old man flushed a little, making his face glow in the gloom.

‘It’s just . . .’ Finmere continued, ‘It’s just sometimes I wish . . .’ He searched for the right words. ‘I wish I had some answers.’

Ted got up and stretched. He took a last drag of his cigarette and ground it out on the pavement. ‘Sometimes, Fin, answers is overrated. You can trust old Ted on that.’ He pulled Finmere to his feet. ‘You ready to go see the old boys?’

Finmere supposed he was. He checked the back pockets of his jeans: they felt wet. Perfect. A wet arse was just what he needed while strolling through town. He twisted around, trying to see how bad it was, but his head wouldn’t turn that far. Feeling horribly self-conscious, he forced his numb feet to push forward. His eyes followed the cracks in the pavement.

Somewhere in the distance a police siren wailed and white vans and black cabs beeped angry horns at each other, as if that would somehow make the capital’s traffic move faster. The cold air burned his chest.

He felt Ted’s arm, heavy and comforting, around his almost-level shoulder. ‘Don’t you worry, son,’ the old man said. ‘You’re sixteen now.’

Finmere let his shoes scuff on the paving stones. ‘How does that make a difference?’

‘Stands to reason, don’t it? Sixteen’s an interesting age. Not quite a fully grown man, but not a kid any more, neither. It’s like you’re in the middle of two things and don’t really belong in either. Anything is possible when you’re sixteen.’

‘I guess so.’ Finmere’s brain strained to wrap itself around Ted’s answer.

‘Sixteen: you – imagine that.’ Ted chuckled a little. ‘And then there’s your birthday itself: the eleventh day of the eleventh month. Always been a funny date, that one. You can’t quite trust it. It’s a date things happen on. And you know what time I found you?’

Finmere nodded. ‘Eleven minutes past eleven.’

‘Yep, that’s right. Just coming out for me first smoke of the shift, and there you was, just laying there. You didn’t cry or nothing.’ He let out a sound that was somewhere between a cough and a laugh. ‘Amazing little thing, you was then.’ He squeezed Fin’s shoulder. ‘And look at you now! Come on, then, pick up your feet and let’s get to Charterhouse Square. They’ll be waiting for us.’

TWO

They walked in comfortable silence against the flow of the pedestrian traffic, Ted carving them a path through the waves of people, Finmere following a step or two in his wake, heading deeper into the heart of the city. Turning off the main road, they cut up through quieter back streets where narrow, uneven flagstones were lit by the warm yellow glow of light escaping from corner pubs. When they came into the open space of Smithfield Market they followed the line of refrigerated meat lorries parked in a row through its covered heart, fighting the chill that blasted through the vast tunnel, until they emerged onto Charterhouse Street.

Taxis scuttled around like beetles, pausing to collect travellers, extinguish their beacon lights and then scurry onwards again. The temperature slid downwards as the twilight gloom was swallowed up by night, and by the time they turned into Charterhouse Square, Finmere could feel the tops of his ears stinging with cold.

He needed to buy a scarf. He should have got one the last time he’d gone shopping, but he’d forgotten, because last year he’d had his thick blue and cream school one for St Martin’s. He had no clue where that was now. Packed in his red school trunk and hidden away somewhere until next year, no doubt, when the trunk would reappear. It would be dropped off in a black limousine, just after he was, at that very exclusive manor house school. Right now, however, he was living out of his green school trunk, the one he had every

alternative year when he was in State education, and Eastfields Comprehensive barely had a uniform, let alone striped House scarves.

Thinking about his red trunk and his green trunk, and his one-year-here-and-one-year-there existence, he decided it was pretty understandable that he was confused, even if that was a bit of an oxymoron or a paradox or some other word for something that shouldn’t really make sense but did. An icy draught teased its way under his collar and he tugged his hoodie up a little bit more to cover his neck.

It wouldn’t be so bad if he could even talk about it, but that was definitely not allowed, and he had never broken that rule, even though he’d been sorely tempted, especially since hitting secondary school. Or perhaps that should be secondary schools. Sometimes it just all got on top of him. It had been bad enough when he’d been smaller, but now when he changed schools he had to change the way he dressed and walked and even spoke, and the lies just got bigger and bigger. He felt like he was living with a permanent headache.

It would be more bearable if he could come up with one good reason for the old men to make him live this way, but he was stumped. It didn’t make any sense – nothing made sense about his life.

Finmere was wondering more and more what would happen if he blurted out to either of his best mates, Joe or Christopher, exactly where he was on the odd years, when he wasn’t at their particular school. And he had bigger worries too: now that he was sixteen would the old boys who paid for everything in his life just pack him and his trunks up and abandon him with nothing? Leave him back on the streets of London where they’d found him? They could do that; after all, he was, as the old nightwatchman had just pointed out, very nearly an adult. If he broke his part of the deal, maybe they’d decide his time in their care was up.

He shivered and glanced up at Ted, striding along in front of him. He looked kind, and he’d always been good to Finmere on their annual visit, but how well could you really know anyone you only saw once a year?

He pushed his hands down into his pockets and squeezed his fingers together until they tingled. He didn’t think he really knew anyone that well, not even Joe and Christopher, and they’d been his friends since he’d been small. He wondered if they’d even like each other if they ever met. More than that, he wondered if they’d still like him if they ever met . . . they’d probably never forgive him for all his secrets, and he wouldn’t exactly blame them.

‘Where are you off to? We’re ’ere, lad.’

Ted’s voice brought Finmere to a halt – in his daze he’d almost walked past their destination.

‘Sorry! I was just thinking—’ He stopped and smiled. Ted was staring at him; it felt like the old man was looking right into his head, and Fin was glad his face was partially hidden by the darkness. He felt ashamed for his ungrateful thoughts. He’d seen plenty of homeless kids on the streets, kids with nothing whatsoever. He was lucky, he really was, and he’d best not forget it.

The gate squealed open. ‘Come on then, son. You’ve got a lot of work ahead of you.’

Finmere nodded and followed him up the short path.

Anyone passing through Charterhouse Square would be forgiven for thinking that Orrery House was no different to the other imposing Georgian buildings that surrounded it. Even in the early evening darkness no lights shone out from behind from behind its shuttered windows, and there was no gilt sign attached to the gleaming door or railings declaring its purpose. There were in fact absolutely no outward clues that the building was any different to those housing the grimly

serious bankers’ and lawyers’ offices that lined the four sides of the Square.

When he’d been younger, Fin had asked why there was no sign. After all, even Eastfields Comp had a sign – a big, tatty, graffiti-covered painted board – beside the main gate.

Ted had just laughed. ‘Everyone who needs to know it’s ’ere, knows it’s ’ere, so why would it need a sign?’ he’d said. ‘Really, Fin, sometimes you say the funniest things.’

Standing outside the imposing anonymous black door so many years later, Finmere didn’t think his question had been funny at all. There was something distinctly odd about an old folks’ home with no sign outside. He’d been keeping an eye out ever since, and he had yet to find one other building like it that didn’t proclaim its purpose. It was just what buildings did. They had signs outside them. It was part of how the world made sense.

He reached up and pressed the gold button. His heart fluttered a little and despite the cold, his hands felt sweaty. After a moment the door swung open.

‘Ah yes, young Master Smith – not so young now, eh? Do come in.’

With the help of a sharp prod in the back from Ted, Finmere stepped inside and wiped his feet carefully on the doormat. The carpets throughout Orrery House were thick, perfect white, and had been for as long as Fin could remember. How they remained that way was a mystery to him. He couldn’t keep a new T-shirt clean for a morning without dripping or dropping something dark and stainworthy down it.

His feet finally scrubbed to his satisfaction, he looked up and said, ‘Hello, Mr Jarvis. How are you?’

‘I am well, thank you.’ Jarvis flicked imaginary dust from his spotless white butler’s gloves that almost shone in the golden light spilling out from the chandeliers glittering beneath the high ceilings. ‘Your birthdays come around faster and faster. It seems like yesterday you were here last.’

He smiled, apparently happy with the condition of his gloved fingers. It was a tight expression. ‘But then, time can be like that, can’t it? All over the place . . . and here we are again. And you’ve got taller.’

Finmere smiled agreeably and wished the adults around him would make more sense. He undid his jacket as his face prickled with warmth. The house was hot. The house was always hot.

‘Normal routine?’ Ted asked.

‘Of course,’ Jarvis replied. ‘Judge Brown is currently detained in a meeting, but he said he’d be back to catch up with the boy before he leaves.’ He turned and led them down the long corridor. The carpet whispered under his feet and Finmere imagined his heart and breath keeping time with his steps. Orrery House always made him a little nervous, but there was a part of him that loved being there. A step and a blanket might not be much to cling on to, but a huge, ornate, obviously wealthy building filled with people who had for some reason chosen to look after him – admittedly in their own very odd way – that was a lot more solid.

He took his coat and hoodie off and hung them in the cloakroom by the vast curving staircase. ‘Where would you like me to start?’

‘The third floor tonight, Master Smith. I don’t expect you to get much more done this evening.’

‘Okay. Well, I’ll just go up then.’

‘Good lad.’ Ted grinned. ‘It’s always right to give something back.’ He winked. ‘I think I’ll go and find meself a cup of tea. There’ll be a sandwich ready for when you’re done, lad.’

‘Thanks, Ted.’

Finmere started up the stairs, clinging to the thick mahogany banister.

‘Oh, and Master Smith?’ Jarvis stood ramrod-straight in his perfectly tailed jacket. ‘Make sure you’re done by 11.45 p.m. sharp. There’s no room for lateness tonight.’

Fin nodded. ‘Yes, Mr Jarvis.’

The third floor lay in hushed silence when Finmere reached it. In an alcove a large vase of stargazer lilies were in full bloom and their sweet scent filled the warm air. Unnumbered glossy white doors lined both sides of the corridor and as Fin stopped outside the first one on his left, he wondered again at the building’s aversion to signs of any kind. Surely these rooms had to be numbered somewhere? People couldn’t just say, ‘Oh, could you pop up and give that room on the third floor a clean. You know the one, somewhere on the middle on the left?’ It just wouldn’t work. It didn’t make sense. Every door at his school – both his schools – had some kind of number or letter on it to separate it from all the other identical doors. That was how things worked.

He sighed. Maybe adults just got weirder as they got older. And if there was one thing he could say about the adults at Orrery House, it was that they were definitely old. Taking a deep breath and fighting his awkwardness, he knocked on the first door and opened it. ‘Hello?’

The light was dimmer inside, away from the myriad reflected glass chandeliers in the corridor. A man sat in a wheelchair by the bed. He didn’t move, or speak. Fin wasn’t surprised. The residents of the house rarely spoke when he was there, and they were invariably wheelchair-bound. ‘It’s me, Mr Everclear,’ he said, ‘Finmere Tingewick Smith? I come every year? On my birthday?’ The elderly man didn’t answer.

Fin felt stupid standing half in the room and half out and his feet propelled him forwards until he was standing in front of the room’s occupier, who looked at least a hundred years old. His wizened body made Ted look like a giant in comparison. The old man’s hair was barely there, just a few wisps of smoky candyfloss drifting over his leathery liver-spotted scalp. His face was thin, his cheekbones almost tearing through the wrinkled, papery skin, and his eyes peered vacantly from under half-closed lids.

Fin tried to smile, but as usual he felt uncomfortable – and it was getting worse every year. Part of the problem was that he wasn’t quite sure if the near-comatose guests could hear him or feel him, and worse than that, he had no idea whether they were even happy for him to be there. The thought that maybe somewhere inside, these old men just wanted him to go away and leave them in peace always made him feel a little like an unwanted intruder. Still, he thought, this was what the Judge wanted him to do, and it was only once each year – and surely the Judge would know what was for the best, far more than him.

Each room was the same: on the small table beside the bed there sat a leatherbound black book that Fin presumed was a Bible, a tin of mints and a pad of paper with a fine, expensive fountain pen on top. The pad in this room was blank. A shaving set had been laid out on a carefully folded towel, next to a small bowl of water.

He picked up the soft towel and carefully tucked it around the old man’s scrawny neck before beginning to work up a lather with the soft horsehair shaving brush. There were no spray foams or gels here; they liked their shaves done the old-fashioned way at Orrery House. Very gently, under his breath, Fin began to whistle while he worked. He figured it was better than silence.

It was amazing how something as simple as shaving could make your arms ache. Maybe it was the concentration needed to keep his hand from shaking and allowing the razor to nick the wrinkled skin, but by ten-thirty his back was hurting from stooping and his fingers felt as if he’d been writing all day at school without a break. On the up side, though, he’d done nearly the whole corridor, and he was well ahead of schedule. After carefully wiping the left-over foam from Mr Soames’ face, Finmere stood back and stretched his spine.

‘I think I’m done,’ he whispered. ‘I hope you like it.’ Mr Soames had actually dozed off half an hour previously, after giving Fin a gummy smile, introducing himself and offering him a mint from his bedside tin. After that, he’d snored his way healthily through the shave. The vibrations from his stentorian breathing should have left his drooping jowls covered in razor-cuts, but Fin had managed to keep his hands steady. After all these years of practice he had become skilled at this strange task.

After rinsing out the bowl and razor, Fin left the shaving kit in the en-suite bathroom and crept back into the corridor. He let out a slight yawn. He was about to go into the next unnumbered room when something distracted him: a sound, breaking the solemn silence of the third floor. He stopped and listened. It was whistling. Someone else was whistling, down at the far end – and whoever was doing it was just as bad as he was. Finmere chewed his lip. It would be far more interesting to shave whoever was the owner of that whistle than another sleeping resident. Fin tried to make a mental note of which room he’d reached – two doors down from where the central chandelier hung – and followed the sound.

At the furthest end of the floor the corridor curved round to the right, and a large landing with another, smaller set of stairs only slightly less grand than those he had come up. Fin peered over the banister to the floor below and then upwards. Nothing. No one. The place was empty. Slightly confused, he walked back the way he’d come and after a couple of metres, paused.

That was odd: the whistling was coming from an alcove next to the last of the bedroom doors. A large vase of daffodils filled the space. Finmere stood in front of it and stared. Flowers didn’t whistle – and even if they did, he didn’t imagine they’d be whistling ‘She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain When She Comes’ quite so badly out of tune.

Peering all around to check that there really was no one

there and this wasn’t some dumb birthday joke, he leaned forward and listened to the vase, his face flushing at the thought of how stupid he’d look if Jarvis or Ted happened to come by and check on him. He felt a sense of relief to discover that the sound was coming from somewhere behind the vase, rather than from the flowers themselves. In fact, it sounded as if it was coming from behind the solid wall . . .

His curiosity fully engaged, he reached out and gave the smooth plaster a tentative push. Nothing happened – not that he really expected it to. But the whistling had to be coming from somewhere. Orrery House was not like Mrs Baker’s lodging house down in Bermondsey, where he could often hear the baby next door crying all night. The walls here were too thick for anything like that, and more importantly, there weren’t any buildings on either side. Orrery House stood alone.

He stared again at the innocent white surface. Behind it, the whistler was in full flow, having moved on to ‘Ten Green Bottles’. Maybe if he moved the flowers out of the way, he’d be able to get a better look, or at least a better listen. He was ahead of schedule, so he’d got a good ten minutes to spare. And it was his birthday, after all.

Firmly gripping the large crystal vase, he lifted it and turned to put it down carefully on the carpet behind him. He was relieved to see that it balanced okay. He wasn’t in a hurry to find out if water would stain that perfect white wool. He stood up straight again and turned back round—

And swore out loud – not very quietly.

The alcove had swung silently open, and in front of him now was the entrance to a narrow, low corridor that looked like it opened out into another bedroom. A secret bedroom.

The whistling stopped.

‘Harlequin? Is that you?’

Finmere swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. His birthday was definitely getting more interesting.

THREE

Not knowing what else to, Finmere stepped through the archway. ‘Um, no. It’s Fin. Finmere Tingewick Smith.’

The low ceiling made him duck a little before it opened outwards and upwards, revealing a room that looked something between a study and a bedroom. It was much bigger than any of the others, and although the table by the bed had the obligatory tin of strong mints and the black book, there was so much more.

An old man was sitting in a wheelchair at the desk, his legs covered with a thick checked blanket despite the heat that was so stifling Finmere could hardly breathe. He looked up and stared for what felt like a very long time. ‘Finmere, you say?’

Fin nodded, trying to keep his eyes on the old man rather than wandering to the mahogany bookshelves lining one wall that were crammed with large red and green leatherbound volumes, or the strange items that cluttered the shelves and desk. It was particularly difficult, because several documents were held down by a paperweight that looked remarkably like a skull of some kind. Almost, but not quite human, Fin thought. It had very, very large eye sockets, not like anything he’d ever seen in the science labs. Something about it made him feel mildly uncomfortable, like whatever had once inhabited it could still see out of those empty sockets. . .