He blinked at her twice. Then, without any warning, he shot away between her legs.

He might even have escaped-he was quick as a weasel-but Maddy had expected it, and with her fingers she cast Isa, the Icy One, and froze him to the spot.

The goblin struggled and squirmed, but his feet were stuck to the ground.

He spat a gobbet of fool’s fire from between his pointed teeth, but still Maddy would not let him go.

The goblin swore in many tongues, some animal, some Faërie, and finished off by saying some very nasty things about Maddy’s family, which she had to admit were mostly true.

Finally he stopped struggling and sat down crossly on the floor.

“So what do you want?” he said.

“What about-three wishes?” suggested Maddy hopefully.

“Leave it out,” said the goblin with scorn. “What kind of stories have you been listening to?”

Maddy was disappointed. Many of the tales she had collected over the past few years had involved someone receiving three wishes from the Faërie, and she felt rather aggrieved that in this case it had turned out to be nothing more than a tale. Still, there were other stories that she thought might contain more practical truths, and her eyes lit up as she finally remembered the thing that had been lurking at the back of her mind since she had first heard the suspicious sounds from behind the barrel.

“In yer own time,” said the goblin, picking his teeth.

“Shh,” said Maddy. “I’m thinking.”

The goblin yawned. He was beginning to look quite cocky now, and his bright gold eyes shone with mischief. “Doesn’t know what to do with me, kennet?” he said. “Knows it’ll bring revenge if I don’t get home safe.”

“Revenge? Who from?”

“The Captain, acourse,” said the goblin. “Gods, was you brung up in a box? Now you let me go, there’s a good girl, and there’ll be no hard feelings and no call to get the Captain involved.”

Maddy smiled but said nothing.

“Ah, come on,” said the goblin, looking uncomfortable now. “There’s no good in keeping me here, and nowt I can give yer.”

“Oh, but there is,” said Maddy, sitting down cross-legged on the floor. “You can give me your name.”

The goblin stared at her, wide-eyed.

“A named thing is a tamed thing. Isn’t that how the saying goes?”

It was an old story, told by One-Eye years ago, and Maddy had almost forgotten it in the excitement of the moment. At the beginning of the First Age, it was given to every creature, tree, rock, and plant a secret name that would bind that creature to the will of anyone who knew it.

Mother Frigg knew the true names and used them to make all of Creation weep for the return of her dead son. But Loki, who had many names, would not be bound to such a spell, and so Balder the Fair, god of springtime, was forced to remain in the Underworld, Hel’s kingdom, until the End of All Things.

“Me name?” the goblin said at last.

Maddy nodded.

“What’s a name? Call me Hair-of-the-Dog, or Whisky-in-the-Jar, or Three-Sheets-to-the-Wind. It’s nowt to me.”

“Your true name,” said Maddy, and once more she drew the rune Naudr, the Binder, and Isa, to fix it in ice.

The goblin wriggled but was held fast. “What’s it to you, anyroad?” he demanded. “And how come you know so bloody much about it?”

“Just tell me,” said Maddy.

“You’d never be able to say it,” he said.

“Tell me anyway.”

“I won’t! Lemme go!”

“I will,” said Maddy, “as soon as you tell me. Otherwise I’ll open up the cellar doors and let the sun do its worst.”

The goblin blenched at that, for sunlight is lethal to the Good Folk. “You wouldn’t do that, lady, would yer?” he whined.

“Watch me,” said Maddy, and, standing up, she began to make her way to the trapdoor-now closed-through which the ale kegs were delivered.

“You wouldn’t!” squeaked the goblin.

“Your name,” she said, with one hand on the latch.

The goblin struggled more fiercely than ever, but Maddy’s runes still held him fast. “He’ll get yer!” he squeaked. “The Captain’ll get yer, and then you’ll be sorry!”

“Last chance,” said Maddy, drawing the bolt. A tiny wand of sunlight fell onto the cellar floor only inches from the goblin’s foot.

“Shut it, shut it!” shrieked the goblin.

Maddy just waited patiently.

“All right, then! All right! It’s…” The goblin rattled off something in his own language, fast as pebbles in a gourd. “Now shut it, shut it now!” he cried, and wriggled as far as he could away from the spike of sunlight.

Maddy shut the trapdoor, and the goblin gave a sigh of relief. “That was just narsty,” he said. “Nice young girl like you shouldn’t be messin’ with narstiness like that.” He looked at Maddy in reproach. “What d’you want me name for, anyroad?”

But Maddy was trying to remember the word the goblin had spoken.

Snotrag? No, that wasn’t it.

Sna-raggy? No, that wasn’t it, either.

Sma-ricky? She frowned, searching for just the right inflection, knowing that the goblin would try to distract her, knowing that unless she got it completely right, the cantrip wouldn’t work.

“Smá-”

“Call me Smutkin, call me Smudgett.” The goblin was babbling now, trying to break Maddy’s cantrip with one of his own. “Call me Spider, Slyme, and Sluggitt. Call me Sleekitt, call me Slow-”

“Quiet!” said Maddy. The word was on the tip of her tongue.

“Say it, then.”

“I will.” If only the creature would stop talking…

“Forgot it, hast yer!” There was a note of triumph in the goblin’s voice. “Forgot it, forgot it, forgot it!”

Maddy could feel her concentration slipping. It was all too much to do at once; she could not hope to keep the goblin subdued and make the effort to remember the cantrip that would bind him to her will. Already Naudr and Isa were close to failing. The goblin had one foot almost free, and his eyes snapped with malice as he worked to release the other.

It was now or never. Dropping the runes, Maddy turned all her will toward speaking the creature’s true name.

“Smá-rakki-” It felt right-fast and percussive-but even as she opened her mouth, the goblin shot out of the corner like a cork from a bottle, and before she had even finished speaking, he was halfway into the cellar wall, burrowing as if his life depended on it.

If Maddy had paused to think at this point, she would simply have ordered the goblin to stop. If she had spoken the name correctly, then he would have been forced to obey her, and she could have questioned him at leisure. But Maddy didn’t pause to think. She saw the goblin’s feet vanishing into the ground and shouted something-not even a cantrip-while at the same time casting Thuris, Thor’s rune, as hard as she could at the mouth of the burrow.

It felt like throwing a firework. It snapped against the brick-lined floor, throwing up a shower of sparks and a small but pungent cloud of smoke.

For a second or two nothing happened. Then there came a low rumble from under Maddy’s feet, and from the burrow came a swearing and a kicking and a scuffle of earth, as if something inside had come up against a sudden obstacle.

Maddy knelt down and reached inside the hole. She could hear the goblin cursing, too far away for her to reach, and now there was another sound, a kind of sliding, squealing, pattering noise that Maddy almost recognized…

The goblin’s voice was muffled but urgent. “Now look what you’ve gone and done. Gog and Magog, let me out!” There came another desperate scuffling of earth, and the creature reversed out of the hole at speed, falling over its feet and coming to a halt against a stack of empty barrels, which fell over with a clatter loud enough (Maddy thought) to wake the Seven Sleepers from their beds.

“What happened?” she said.

But before the goblin could make his reply, something shot out of the hole in the wall. Several somethings, in fact; no, dozens-no, hundreds-of fat, brown, fast-moving somethings, swarming from the burrow like-