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The Manor House was not difficult to find

"The gates are open" Gallowglass cracked his knuckles

"What is your plan, Gallowglass? Running at the front door and battering it doith your bare hands?" I cli the bell"

Gallowglass was behind us as alked straight through the open front gates and skirted the round stone planter that I suspected had been a fountain before it was filled in with soil Standing in the middle were two box trees clipped to resemble dachshunds

"How extraordinary," Phoebe reen sculptures

The door to the manor was set in the middle of a bank of los There was no bell, but an iron knocker--also shaped like a dachshund--had been inexpertly affixed to the stout Elizabethan panels Before Phoebe could give me a lecture about the preservation of old houses, I lifted the dog and rapped sharply

Silence

I rapped again, putting a bitin plain view of the road," Gallowglass growled "That’s the sorriest excuse for a wall I’ve ever seen A child could step over it"

"Not everybody can have a moat," I said "I hardly think Benja Weston, never lass was unconvinced and continued to look around like an anxious owl

I was about to rap again when the door was flung open Aa parachute stood in the entrance Dogs swar

"Whenever have you been?" The stranger engulfed e question s leaped and frolicked, excited to naled his approval He letlike a buss of welcome

"You’re a daereen eye and one blue, he studied Gallowglass "And he’s a va enough to replace the lightbulbs"

"I don’t do lightbulbs," Gallowglass said

"Wait I know you," I said, sifting through the faces in my memory This was one of the daemons I’d seen in the Bodleian last year when I’d first encountered Ash apart microfilm readers He alore earbuds, even when they weren’t attached to anything

"Timothy?"

"The saers and thumbs so they looked like six-shooters He was, I noticed, still wearing reen and the other blue--to ainst his teeth "Told you, babe: You’re the one"

"Are you T J Weston?" Phoebe asked, trying to s

Tiers in his ears and lass shouted "Shut your gobs, little yappers"

The barking stopped instantly The dogs sat, jaws open and tongues lolling, and looked at Gallowglass adoringly Tier from one of his ears

"Nice," the daes ilass bundled us all inside, ht lines and defensive positions and possible hearing daot down on the floor in front of the fireplace and let the dogs scra as if their pack’s alpha had been returned to the absence

"What are their na to count the nu mound

"Hansel and Gretel, obviously" Tih she were hopeless

"And the other four?" Phoebe asked

"Oscar Molly Rusty And Puddles" Ti in turn

"He likes to play outside in the rain?"

"No," Timothy replied "She likes to piddle on the floor Her nae calls her Puddles now"

A graceful segue froed forward "Did you buy a page from an illuminated manuscript that has a tree on it?"

"Yep" Ti to sell it tocoy

"Nope"

"We’re prepared to pay handsoht not like the de Cler, but she was beginning to see the benefits of their purchasing power

"It’s not for sale" Tis who then returned to Gallowglass and began to gnaw on the toe of his boot

"Can I see it?" Perhaps Tiht

"Sure" Timothy divested hi like a cape, and strode out of the rooh several rooned for different purposes fro room had a battered drum kit set up in the center with DEREK AND

THE DERANGERS painted on the bass-druraveyard except for the chintz sofas and beribboned wallpaper

"It’s in there So at the next roolass said, astonished

"There" was the old library "So places, including unopened shipping crates andback to the 1920s, and stacks and stacks of old newspapers There was a large collection of clock faces of all sizes, descriptions, and vintages, too

And there were manuscripts Thousands of manuscripts

"I think it’s in a blue folder," Ti his chin He had obviously started shaving at some point earlier in the day but only partially co have you been buying old books?" I asked, picking up the first one that cahteenth-century student science notebook, Gerhtenran died and left me this place My mom left when I was five, and my dad, Derek, died of an accidental overdose when I turned nine, so it was just me and Gran after that" Ti it ever since Do you want to see allery upstairs?"