in a curve, down to the station and back towards the better part again. Now, the Altuns’ house was just on the edge of the poorer part. The Sage was coming this way! New Unicorn Street had not been so far away. The next place should be nearer still. Thasper had only to look for a house on fire.
It was getting dark by then. Thasper threw his curtains back and leaned out of his window to look at the poorer streets. And there it was! There was a red-and-orange flicker to the left—in Harvest Moon Street, by the look of it. Thasper laughed aloud. He was actually grateful to the assassins!
He raced downstairs and out of the house. The anxious questions of parents and the yells of brothers and sisters followed him, but he slammed the door on them. Two minutes’ running brought him to the scene of the fire. The street was a mad flicker of dark figures. People were piling furniture in the road. Some more people were helping a dazed woman in a crooked brown turban into a singed armchair.
“Didn’t you have a lodger as well?” someone asked her anxiously.
The woman kept trying to straighten her turban. It was all she could really think of. “He didn’t stay,” she said. “I think he may be down at the Half Moon now.”
Thasper waited for no more. He went pelting down the street. The Half Moon was an inn on the corner of the same road. Most of the people who usually drank there must have been up the street, helping rescue furniture, but there was a dim light inside, enough to show a white notice in the window. ROOMS, it said.
Thasper burst inside. The barman was on a stool by the window craning to watch the house burn. He did not look at Thasper. “Where’s your lodger?” gasped Thasper. “I’ve got a message. Urgent.”
The barman did not turn round. “Upstairs, first on the left,” he said. “The roof’s caught. They’ll have to act quick to save the house on either side.”
Thasper heard him say this as he bounded upstairs. He turned left. He gave the briefest of knocks on the door there, flung it open, and rushed in.
The room was empty. The light was on, and it showed a stark bed, a stained table with an empty mug and some sheets of paper on it, and a fireplace with a mirror over it. Beside the fireplace, another door was just swinging shut. Obviously somebody had just that moment gone through it. Thasper bounded towards that door. But he was checked, for just a second, by seeing himself in the mirror over the fireplace. He had not meant to pause. But some trick of the mirror, which was old and brown and speckled, made his reflection look for a moment a great deal older. He looked easily over twenty. He looked—
He remembered the Letter from the Unknown. This was the time. He knew it was. He was about to meet the Sage. He had only to call him. Thasper went towards the still gently swinging door. He hesitated. The Letter had said call at once. Knowing the Sage was just beyond the door, Thasper pushed it open a fraction and held it so with his fingers. He was full of doubts. He thought, Do I really believe the gods need people? Am I so sure? What shall I say to the Sage after all? He let the door slip shut again.
“Chrestomanci,” he said, miserably.
There was a whoosh of displaced air behind him. It buffeted Thasper half around. He stared. A tall man was standing by the stark bed. He was a most extraordinary figure in a long black robe, with what seemed to be yellow comets embroidered on it. The inside of the robe, swirling in the air, showed yellow, with black comets on it. The tall man had a very smooth dark head, very bright dark eyes and, on his feet, what seemed to be red bedroom slippers.
“Thank goodness,” said this outlandish person. “For a moment, I was afraid you would go through that door.”
The voice brought memory back to Thasper. “You brought me home through a picture when I was little,” he said. “Are you Chrestomanci?”
“Yes,” said the tall outlandish man. “And you are Thasper. And now we must both leave before this building catches fire.”
He took hold of Thasper’s arm and towed him to the door which led to the stairs. As soon as he pushed