“Then I’d love to try one,” said Will.

“It will make you sick,” said Hugo Rune.

“Then I think I’ll not bother.”

“Then let us press on with the business in hand. To whit, how you will play an active role in defeating the forces of darkness.”

“Forces of darkness?” Will shook his head once more. “All lost on me,” he said. “Could I have some more champagne, please?”

“It will make you drunk,” said Rune.

“I’ve been drunk before,” said Will. “Happily, we still have alcohol where I come from.”

Rune poured Will another glass.

“The forces of darkness,” said Rune once more. “To whit, the witches.”

Will coughed into his glass, sending champagne up his nose. “Witches?” he managed to say, when he had finished with coughing.

“Witches,” said Rune. “Witchcraft is the scourge of this enlightened age.”

“Don’t be silly,” said Will. “Witchcraft is superstition. Medieval stuff. No one believes in witchcraft. Except perhaps my best friend Tim. He’s convinced that the world is run by witches.”

Rune’s eyes grew wide. These wide eyes fixed upon Will. “Your best friend Tim?” said Rune, in a cold, dead voice. “Not yourself?”

“Certainly not!” said Will. “I don’t believe in rubbish like that.”

“But you are Will Starling? Second-born son of William Edward Starling, born on the second of February, in the year two thousand, two hundred and two.”

“I’m the only son of William Edward Starling,” said Will.

“No you’re not,” said Rune.

“Oh yes I am,” said Will.

“Not,” said Rune.

“Am too,” said Will.

Rune shook his head once more. “Born on the second of February, two thousand, two hundred and two.”

Will now shook his head once more. “That’s not my birthday. I was born on the first of January. But …”

“But what?”

“The second of the second, two thousand, two hundred and two, that’s Tim’s birthday.”

“Calamity,” cried Rune, throwing up his great hands, one of which spilled champagne while the other dropped his cigarette. “This is all your father’s doing.”

“My father?” Will asked. “What has my father got to do with this?”

“Everything.” Rune waved his hands about above his head. “From father to son the lore has passed. From second son to second son.”

“I’m an only child,” said Will.

“I’ve brought back the wrong brother,” Rune’s hands now covered his face. “This is disastrous.”

“Tim isn’t my brother.”

“Oh yes he is.”

“Oh no he isn’t.”

“Is.”

“Isn’t.”

“Is,” said Hugo Rune once more.

“Isn’t,” said Will. “Although …”

“Although what?”

“Well, actually, he does look a bit like me, I suppose. He’s heavier and darker, but there’s a slight resemblance. And we’ve been best friends since childhood; he’s very much like a brother to me. Or was.” For now Will recalled that terrible something. The terrible death of Tim.

“Was?” Rune peeped through his fingers.

“Something awful happened,” said Will. “I don’t want to talk about it”

“He was killed,” said Rune. “By the demonic automaton. I know what happened, what will happen. I was able to predict it. But not to predict that your father’s second son would not be born within wedlock. This Tim is your brother, but by a different mother.”

“Bravo, Dad,” said Will. “You dirty blighter. I remember you’ve always spent a lot of time round at Mrs McGregor’s. So that’s what you were up to, eh?”

“Ruination,” cried Rune and he jumped to his feet. “All my calculations, all my planning, ruined by your profligate father sowing the seeds of his loins in some harlot.”

“Easy,” said Will. “Mrs McGregor is a very nice woman.”

“Ruination,” cried Rune once more. “Woe unto the house of Rune and to the future generations thereof. All my work in bringing my magical heir to me.”

“Your magical heir?” Will asked.

“I am one of your ancestors,” said Hugo Rune. “The most important of all your ancestors. I sought to recall the last member of the True Craft back here to aid me. But instead of him, I have you.”

“You are one of my ancestors?” said Will. “Amazing.”

“We are all doomed.” Rune’s great voice rattled the windowpanes. “And it is all the fault of your father.”

“I’ve had enough of this,” said Will, rising from the straw pallet. “I’m leaving. I’ll go and find Mr Wells. Maybe he can get me back home.”

“You are going nowhere, young man.” Rune glared down upon Will.

“I am too,” said Will, adding, “you don’t frighten me.”

Which was not entirely true.

“Sit down!” shouted Rune. “If you are all that I have, then I will have to make do with you.”

“You will do no such thing. I’m leaving.”

Rune made certain complicated passes with his large hands and Will found his legs going weak at the knees. He sank back down onto the pallet.

“I will speak and you will listen,” said the giant.

“What have you done to my knees?” croaked Will, feeling at these now unfeeling articles.

“A spell of temporary disablement. Curb your tongue, lest I strike it from your mouth.”

Will kerbed his tongue and squeezed some more at his knees. He was scared now. Truly scared.

“It has taken me years to work out the calculations,” said Rune. “To bring back the last in my line. Seemingly I am to be thwarted. But I will not be thwarted. If it is fate that you should be the one returned to me, rather than the one I called for, then so be it. I bow to fate. But I bow also to purpose. That it should be you, must have purpose. I will tutor you, boy. You will learn and you will play your part in defeating mankind’s greatest enemy.”

“Please,” Will made pleading hand-wringings. “I’m sorry that I’m not what you expected. But it’s not my fault. Please just let me go. I’m no use to you. I don’t believe in magic.”

“And your legs?” Rune asked.

“The champagne?” Will suggested.

Rune shook his head.

“Then I don’t know. But what I do honestly know is that I don’t want to play any more. I want to go home. I want my mum.” And Will began to cry.

Hugo Rune placed a great hand upon his shoulder. “My apologies,” said he. “I have frightened you. I understand that this is none of your doing. You are a victim of circumstance. But you are my heir. Not the heir I had hoped for, but my heir none the less. My blood is your blood and likeways about. You will not survive long in this time without my help. I will help you and you in turn will help me. What say you to this?”

Will looked up at Hugo Rune. “I just want to go home,” he said.

“And you will. I have promised you this.”

“I want to go home now,” said Will, sniffing away.

“That, I regret, is impossible.”

Will took to sniffing some more.

“It will all be made well,” said Hugo Rune. “I will make it well with your help. Trust me. I’m a magician.”

Will groaned, dismally.

“Come,” said Rune. “Follow me and I will show you something marvellous.”

Will did sighings, but Will’s legs suddenly worked once more and Will rose and followed Hugo Rune.

Rune led Will up further stairs, through a doorway and onto the flat roof of the tenement. Pigeons roosted, chimneys smoked, and London lay all around and about.

“Impressive, isn’t it?” said Rune.

Will nodded dismally, then Will stared and then Will beheld and went, “Wow.”

The sight was at once beautiful, awesome and terrific. It was of such a scale as to be dizzying. Acre upon grey acre of slate rooftops led away and away to wonder upon wonder upon wonder.

The dome of St Paul’s glittering in the sunlight. The spires of St Pancras and St Martin in the Fields and Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament. It was a panoramic view.

It was Victorian London, as Will had imagined it to be, as he had seen it pictured in engravings and lithographs. It was all there but there was more.