Ismael picked up the candle and placed it by the door, while Irene took a quick look around. The space had probably once served as an additional storeroom for the library, but it seemed more like an empty waiting room, with no furniture and covered in decades of dust. On closer inspection, Irene noticed shapes on the ceiling. Small pipes. Irene took one of the candles and lifted it above her head. She could see the glint of tiles and mosaics on the wall.
‘Where the devil are we?’ asked Ismael.
‘I don’t know . . . They look like . . . like showers . . .’
In the candlelight they could see a network of hundreds of bell-shaped sprinklers emerging from the pipes, their mouths rusty and covered in a citadel of cobwebs.
‘Whatever this place is, it must be ages since anyone has—’
Before she’d even finished the sentence, they heard a harsh sound, the unmistakable screech of a rusty wheel turning. Right there, next to them. Irene brought the candle closer to the tiled wall. There were two stopcocks and they were moving.
A strong vibration was running through the walls, the rumble of something creeping above their heads. They held their breath. Something was making its way through the narrow pipes.
‘It’s here!’ shouted Irene.
Ismael nodded, his eyes glued to the sprinklers. A thick mass began to filter through the holes. Irene and Ismael took a few steps back, transfixed as the shadow gradually formed before them, like sand falling through an hourglass.
Two eyes appeared and the friendly face of Lazarus smiled at them. It would have been a reassuring sight had they not known that what was standing before them was not Lazarus.
‘Where is my mother?’ Irene asked defiantly, moving closer.
A deep, inhuman voice spoke: ‘She’s with me . . .’
‘Get away from it,’ said Ismael.
The shadow’s eyes locked on Ismael, who appeared to go into a trance. Irene shook her friend and tried to move him away, but he did not react and remained trapped in the shadow’s spell. She put herself in between the two then slapped Ismael, which finally woke him from his stupor. The face of the shadow now filled with anger and two long arms reached towards them. Irene and Ismael hurled themselves against the wall, trying to dodge the shadow’s claws.
At that moment a door opened and a halo of light appeared on the other side of the room. In the doorway stood a man holding an oil lamp.
‘Get out of here!’ he yelled. Irene immediately recognised the voice: it was the toymaker, Lazarus Jann.
The shadow let out a shriek and, one by one, the candles went out. Lazarus advanced towards the shadow. His face seemed much older than Irene remembered, and his bloodshot eyes were immensely tired, like those of a man consumed by illness.
‘Get out of here!’ he shouted again.
They caught a glimpse of the shadow’s demonic face as it transformed into a cloud of gas, seeping into the cracks in the floor and flowing towards a small gap in the wall. As it escaped, it made a sound similar to wind whistling against windowpanes.
Lazarus stood there, watching the gap for a moment. Then he fixed his penetrating gaze on Irene and Ismael.
‘What on earth are you doing here?’ he asked, unable to hide his fury.
‘I’ve come to find my mother. I’m not leaving without her,’ Irene retorted.
‘You don’t know what you’re up against . . . Quick, this way. It won’t be long before it comes back.’
Lazarus led them through the door.
‘What is this thing? What is it we’ve seen?’ asked Ismael.
Lazarus looked at him intently.
‘It’s me . . . That thing you’ve seen is me . . .’
Lazarus led them through an intricate labyrinth of tunnels, the very bowels of Cravenmoore. The way was flanked by a large number of closed doors on either side, secret entrances to the dozens of bedrooms and other rooms in the house.
Lazarus’s lamp cast a circle of amber light against the walls. Ismael noticed his own shadow and Irene’s walking beside them, but Lazarus had no shadow. The toymaker stopped before a tall, narrow door, pulled out a key, then opened it. He scanned the passage along which they had come and signalled to them to go in.