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‘I knew it!’ Elinor alot to keep her voice down ‘He just wants to save his own skin That’s why he’s helping us! He doesn’t have a guilty conscience, oh no Why should he?’

‘I don’t care why he’s helping us, Elinor,’ Mo interrupted her iet away fro to take someone else with us too’

‘Soer looked at him uneasily

‘The boy The one I conde his way past Dustfinger and out of the door ‘Basta said he’s next door to us, and a lock is no obstacle to your clever fingers’

‘I burned those clever fingers today!’ rily ‘Still, just as you please Your soft heart will be the ruin of us yet’

When Dustfinger knocked on the door bearing the nu could be heard on the other side of it ‘Seeot to work on the lock ‘They put people condemned to death in the crypt under the church Ever since I told Basta for a joke that a White Lady haunts the stone coffins down there, he turns white as a sheet whenever Capricorn sends him into the crypt’ He chuckled quietly at the ood practical joke

Meggie looked across at the church ‘Do they often condeer shrugged ‘Not as often as they used to But it does happen’

‘Stop telling her such stories!’ whispered Mo He and Elinor never took their eyes off the church tower The sentry was posted high up on the wall beside the belfry It ie dizzy just to look up there

‘Those are no stories, Silvertongue, it’s the truth! Don’t you recognise the truth when you meet it any more? The truth’s not pretty, of course No one likes to look it in the face’ Dustfinger stepped back from the door and bowed ‘After you I’ve picked the lock, you can fetch hi

‘You go in,’ Mo whispered to Meggie ‘He’ll be less afraid of you’

It was pitch dark on the other side of the door, but Meggie heard a rustle as she stepped into the roo soh the doorway and handed her a torch When Meggie switched it on, the beaiven hiie had slept, but the boy looked as if he hadn’t closed his eyes since Flatnose had locked his, as if they were all he could rely on Perhaps he was still waiting for his nightie, reaching out a hand to him ‘We want to help you! We’ll take you away from here!’

He didn’t move, just stared at her, his eyes narroith distrust