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  “It’s as fine a blade as I’ve ever seen,” Malcolm told the proud smithy as he slid the sword into its scabbard and belted it to his waist. “My last was a gift from my uncle, forged in Santander itself. This one is its equal.”

  He had a quiver of new arrows too, and an English-style longbow that the rabbits had copied from their human countrymen. That afternoon, he spent an hour at the range befriending the archers of Willowbraid, but he still made sure he won the impromptu contest that broke out.

  Norman had a weapon too. By design, it was a two-handed broadsword, meant for the burliest of rabbit warriors; in Norman’s hands, it was a short dagger. He’d tucked it into his belt at first, but instead of making him feel safer, it only reminded him of the danger. It was in his knapsack for the time being, with the human-sized pen and pencil Malcolm had lifted from Kit’s study and a sheaf of white computer paper.

  There was celebrating that night in Willowbraid. All afternoon the town smelled like baking, and as night fell rabbit swains carried long tables and laid them in rows across the cathedral square. All the townspeople came out, carrying the trays of food they’d made for the festivities. Norman sat on the steps of the cathedral, beside the head table. Shy rabbit girls offered him bowls of salad and trays of tiny bread loaves that he ate in one gulp. The bread melted in his mouth. He had never tasted anything like it. When the rabbits saw him stuffing spare loaves into his knapsack, they brought out another tray and filled any remaining space in his bag.

  “You know, when I became a vegetarian,” Norman told Malcolm, “kids at school teased me that I ate rabbit food.”

  Malcolm raised a glass of raspberry beer and toasted, “To rabbit food—second to none!”

  After dinner, the tables were pulled to the side and the square became a giant dance floor. Norman watched as the rabbits danced their complicatedly choreographed routines, forming lines, linking arms and turning in circles, making intricate patterns in the square. When the formal dancing was done, the tempo picked up and young rabbit couples danced merrily together, whirling across the cobbles. Children had decided by this point that they were brave enough to approach the human boy sitting on the cathedral steps. They made a game of creeping up on him to try to touch him. Norman waited until the last minute before feinting towards them and sending them scrambling, giggling through the square.

  “What does this remind you of, Mal?” He wondered if the stoat was thinking the same thing.

  “The victory celebrations at Lochwarren,” Malcolm said with a slow smile. Despite this, he seemed distracted. On most days, no one enjoyed a feast more than the stoat prince. “It’s like that day in more ways than one.”

  The victory they celebrated at Lochwarren had come at the cost of many lives. Malcolm’s father, Duncan, had not lived to see the stoat banner raised again over their ancestral castle.

  “Cuilean will be okay,” Norman told him. “A few days of vegetable stew and Esme’s magic herbs, and he’ll be his old self.”

  Malcolm nodded. “And still, this is not my celebration. You and I still have a battle to fight.” He tapped the hilt of his new sword instinctively. “More than one, it seems.”

  As the festivities wound down and the rabbit mothers began dragging their excited children to bed, Esme finally appeared.

  “Your uncle is a tough soldier,” she told Malcolm as she nibbled on whatever was left at their table. “He’s been treated badly. He has a touch of cellar fever and the damp from the dungeons has worked its way into his joints, but he’ll get through. He’s a battler.”

  Malcolm snarled and tapped the sword at his side again. “I should never have left. It was reckless of me.”

  “You needed the map. You still need the map. Jerome will help us. Once we have that, we’ll put Guillaume in his place.” Norman’s reassurance did nothing to dispel the bitter look in the stoat prince’s eye.

  Esme broke the solemn silence. “I’ve brought you your papers,” she said, handing over two small pages of fine rabbit calligraphy. “I rewrote what you dictated in smaller script. Easier to digest.”

  Norman scanned the pages and marvelled at what she’d managed to fit in. They’d debated long and hard about what to write. The return trip was easy—if they needed to escape, they would return to this very spot in the cathedral square. It was the outbound leg that challenged them. Days of captivity had stoked Malcolm’s anger, and he was ready for some fighting. He was all for getting to the heart of the matter, surprising John of Nantes in his tent and ending his reign of terror with a few well-placed strokes of his new sword. Norman wasn’t so sure that was a contest they would win. The only advantage they had was surprise. Nantes had all the weapons they had and more. In battle, size and numbers often matter.

  Norman’s worry was rescuing Jerome. They needed to get him out of the library before John of Nantes’s archers burned it down. Then they needed to escape San Savino, or at least find somewhere safe from the fire—somewhere in the cellars, maybe, or deep in the clay fort. Anywhere but in the wooden rafters among the dry scrolls.

  Norman scanned the page now and wondered if they had made the right choice. Esme watched and seemed to read his mind.

  “Here,” she said, handing over a third piece of paper. “I wrote up the other one as well. In case you change your mind.”

  As Norman took the page from her outstretched hand, he wondered if he was grateful or not. It only delayed the decision yet again.

  The moon was out by the time they curled up on the straw that the rabbits had laid down in the square for them. Malcolm was yawning already. Norman was tired but not sleepy, if that made any sense. His stomach was a mess of nerves.

  Malcolm could see what he was thinking. “Fear is normal,” he assured him. “You aren’t any less of a warrior for it. Even my father was afraid.” Norman found this difficult to believe. Duncan had seemed fearless. “In battle, he always said, we conquer our fears first and our enemies second, and the strength comes from our allies, the friends who fight beside us. We fight to keep them from harm, because the fear of losing them is greater than the fear of dying.”

  Norman thought about that and was shocked to realize the stoat was right. In all the battles he’d fought, the fear had always disappeared into the background when he thought of Malcolm. Knowing that his friend felt the same calmed him instantly. His body felt warm from the inside, like he’d just eaten soup on a cold day.

  “You’ve made your choice?” the stoat asked, indicating the pieces of paper that Norman held in his hands.

  “I have,” Norman told him confidently. He ripped a corner from the page and began chewing before offering Malcolm a symbolic bite. The pages were almost as easy to digest as that night’s bread loaves. Norman had eaten a lot of paper in his short life, but nothing went down as easily as fine rabbit-made rice paper.

  In Paris, Encore

  A lot happened very quickly, or seemingly within the same moment. A blood-curdling scream brought Norman to. It was the kind of noise that they say could wake the dead. Norman wasn’t dead, but it woke him anyway. He rose with a start, shouting, “What?”

  He didn’t know who was being attacked or by what, but the shrieking continued, rising to an ear-splitting crescendo. The screamer wasn’t the woman in the old-fashioned dress and fancy hairdo of cascading ringlets who stood several feet away, although she had every reason to scream. A man in a blue military jacket and a stage villain’s moustache aimed a short-barrelled revolver at her chest, and yet she seemed remarkably calm. Her head was tilted to one side and her arms were crossed in front of her as if she was about to lecture her assailant on the rudeness of pointing guns at people.

  Norman and Malcolm had emerged in the balcony box of an ornate theatre. The screaming was coming from the stage below, and everyone else in the theatre seemed to be okay with it.

  “Alarm!” Malcolm cried, bursting free of the knapsack. “What foul screeching! Is it swans attacking us?”

  At the sight of
the stoat in his forest gear, reaching for his sword, the woman shook her ringleted head and blinked, as if she wasn’t sure she could believe what she was seeing. “Norman?” she cried out in shock.

  While Norman stood stunned and wondered how it could be that she looked so familiar, Malcolm was all action. He leapt to one of the cushioned chairs and from there to the balcony railing, his sword already drawn.

  “Lower your hand cannon!” he demanded.

  The man in the military tunic and the twisted moustache whirled round in surprise, pointing his revolver at the strange woodland creature that had accosted him.

  Malcolm didn’t waste a second. With two deft swooshes of the blade, he marked an X across the gunman’s wrist, and the revolver fell from his hand with a clatter.

  The woman in ringlets sprang forward and deftly kicked the gun away. Under her ornate opera dress, she was wearing the same neon orange runners that his mother wore.

  “You must be Malcolm,” she said. “I can see you’re handy in a fight.” Under that makeup and behind those ringlets, it was his mother’s voice.

  Down below, the screaming had stopped. A swell of violins replaced the screeching and a man began to sing, and finally Norman came to his senses. Nobody pointed a gun at his mother. He braced himself and charged at the gunman’s knees. The moustachioed officer grunted and lurched as he absorbed the blow, but Malcolm gave him another sharp poke with the sword.

  Their attacker recoiled from the shock but still kept his balance. It was the slap his mother gave him that did him in. She didn’t even wind up, just smacked him across the cheek with her open hand. Her assailant’s head spun away from this last blow, throwing him completely off balance. He made one last grab for the railing but went flailing over it, toppling into the rows of seats some twelve or fifteen feet below.

  “Lecteur!” the man howled as he plummeted. He landed among the audience, sending hats and programs flying. On the stage, the singer stopped to gauge the source of the interruption and the orchestra screeched to a halt. Norman, Malcolm and Meg Jespers-Vilnius peered over the edge and watched their assailant rise slowly to his feet. He shook his head and dusted his tunic as if to pretend he’d just stumbled and it was nothing much, but he limped as he escaped down the aisle. When he reached a side door, he turned to shake a fist dramatically.

  “You have made a powerful enemy, Madame Lecteur!” he bellowed. “Tell Dupin he hasn’t seen the last of me.”

  With that, he charged out of the theatre. The room buzzed with questions as every head in the audience and on the stage turned to stare up at the fashionably attired lady, the shabby little boy and what appeared to be some sort of forest animal standing at the edge of the box.

  In the neighbouring boxes, women in even more elaborate dresses and hairdos waved their fans and gasped. Men in top hats and tails peered over to see if anyone needed rescuing or to be challenged to a duel. Too late, Norman thought.

  His mother was still for a moment, then with a dramatic flourish, she blew the audience a kiss and waved. It was as if she were just another actor in the play. When she had finished waving, she pulled calmly on a silk cord, cloaking the flickering gas lamps and gilt-decorated balconies of the theatre behind a thick red curtain.

  The murmur of the crowd continued for a few more moments, then the singer resumed his song. He sang alone for a moment, until finally the orchestra pulled itself together and accompanied him.

  Meg Jespers-Vilnius turned to her rescuers. “You two arrived just in time. Well done.”

  Norman stared at her red lips as they moved, fascinated. Even on days when his mother had a speaking engagement, he’d never seen her dressed so elaborately.

  “Are you going to introduce me to Prince Malcolm?” She nodded towards the stoat, who was watching the scene below through a crack in the curtain.

  Malcolm turned and executed his most princely bow. “At your service, Madame Lecteur.”

  Norman’s mother returned his greeting with a curtsy. “You may call me Meg.”

  Norman thought she was taking this rather well. “Malcolm, this is my mother.”

  Malcolm bowed again. “It is a pleasure.” Then he voiced the question that needed to be asked: “Where are we?”

  “The opera,” his mother said. Norman had heard of the opera. It sounded even worse than he’d imagined. “The Paris opera house.”

  “Dora said that you’d gone to Paris.” Norman was relieved to see his mother, no matter where.

  “Did Dora tell you that we’d gone to Paris of the 1800s?”

  Norman shook his head. “Is Dad here too?”

  “He’s here, but he doesn’t know where ‘here’ is. He and Dupin are backstage searching the dressing rooms.” Then, as if remembering what had just happened, she urged them to the door. “We’d better be going. I expect the gendarmes will be on their way.”

  Norman opened the knapsack to let Malcolm jump in.

  “Oh, don’t worry about that,” Meg told them. “We can freak out a few Parisians. It’s not like it’s a real book.”

  Malcolm crinkled his forehead as if struggling to decipher what she said, but he decided to let it go. “At your service, madame.” He jumped to Norman’s shoulder, flourishing his cape. “Let us freak out the Parisians, as you say!”

  They marched through the lobby, past gawking spectators and staff. Norman winked at them and gave them the thumbs-up sign. Meg took a handful of coins from her purse and handed them to the doorman. He glanced at the scruffy boy and his stoat and struggled to maintain a professional smile.

  “Tell Monsieurs Dupin and Lecteur not to return to Rue Dunot tonight, but to meet me at the Gare D’Orsay tomorrow,” she told him.

  The doorman nodded dutifully, as if this was the sort of request he always got.

  At the curb, they entered a carriage that seemed to be waiting for them.

  “We’re going to Dupin’s house? Dupin the detective? We’re in a Poe story? Does Dad know?” Norman peppered his mother with questions. If his father realized he was in a book, he probably thought he was losing his mind.

  “The answers to your questions are yes, yes, sort of and no.”

  Both Norman and Malcolm squinted at her.

  “Yes, it’s Dupin the detective, but no, this is not a Poe story, or not really. It seemed so at first, but it’s dragging on far too long, and all the villains have the same bad moustache as that guy back there at the opera. There just seems to be conspiracy after conspiracy and no solution. Poe wouldn’t have written this. Dad thinks we’re on some sort of mystery dinner party vacation. He can’t ever find out what’s really happening. That’s why I left that message with the doorman. He can’t see you here.”

  “Can’t you just bookweird yourself out?”

  She shook her head regretfully. “I’m not so nimble with the bookweird as you are, young man. I didn’t bring myself here. I can’t get myself out.”

  As the carriage rattled along the cobbled streets, Malcolm pressed his nose against the window. “Norman, you should see this. The city is enormous and completely lit up. Some of these buildings are like mountains.”

  Norman ignored the stoat’s interruption and tried to understand what his mother was telling him. “But if this isn’t a real book and Poe didn’t write it, then who …?”

  “I think I’ve figured out that mystery. This has Kit written all over it. It’s the sort of thing he would try—copying Poe.”

  Norman thought of the file he’d seen on Kit’s computer: “The Case of Madame Lecteur.”

  “So Uncle Kit really is a writer?”

  “He wishes.” Meg exhaled and shook her head. “Kit tries—he really tries—but all he can do is copy. He never finishes anything either. He doesn’t have the attention span. He starts with these grandiose plans and then just gives up.”

  Norman could sympathize. He’d tried to write a book once, just as he’d tried to invent a board game and build an Elf Lord diorama. He almost felt sorry for Kit. H
is uncle wasn’t much of a writer, and he wasn’t much of a villain either.

  Norman peered out the window. They were crossing a stone bridge, following a line of carriages over the Seine. It was strange being in the same book as his mother. She’d warned him about the bookweird, and he’d tried hard to keep what he was doing a secret. But it was all out now, and he was relieved she wasn’t angry. Nineteenth-century Paris seemed about the best time and place to ask her the question he’d been wanting to ask since they came to England.

  “Why are you so mad at Kit? What did you fight about?”

  Meg sighed and rolled her eyes. “We fought about everything. We fought about who could name the most capital cities, who could cross the wooden footbridge in the fewest steps. We argued about who was going to be the most famous writer. We argued about which books belonged to who. In the end, we mostly argued about the bookweird. I knew we had to stop. I had realized that it was dangerous. Your uncle didn’t think any of it was real, but I knew that the lives of people in books were just as real as ours, and that we were wrong to meddle in them.”

  Norman couldn’t lift his head to speak. His mother was right. She’d warned him, but he hadn’t listened. He’d wanted to help. He’d wanted to dive right into a book and save the day. He’d wanted to be the hero, not just the reader, but it had never worked out that way.

  His meddling had put a lot of people in danger. He thought of George Kelmsworth, fighting off a desperate criminal from hard-boiled New York with not much more than a cricket bat and his own ridiculous self-belief. He thought about Amelie, trembling as she faced the wolf assassins that Norman had unwittingly unleashed from Undergrowth. Norman had scraped by so far. George and Amelie were okay, but not everyone was. He and Malcolm were supposed to be rescuing Jerome right now.

  “Mom,” he began, “there’s something I need to tell you.” It was so hard to say. It was almost as if he needed to drag the words out of his throat with a rope.