From the study, Van Bam had taken Clara and Old Man Sam to a conference room within the Nightshade. Hamir the necromancer was absent, and the three of them sat at one end of a long conference table, with the Resident positioned in the head chair. Clara sat to his left and stared across the table's polished wood at Samuel. Samuel held her gaze evenly, and she felt her anger brewing.

The old bounty hunter had already explained what had occurred out in the Great Labyrinth after Clara had fled the courtyard; how Marney had summoned a wild demon to take Charlie Hemlock away, and how she herself had then been abducted. Van Bam had listened attentively, making very little comment. After Samuel had finished, no one had spoken for several moments. Both the old bounty hunter and the Resident confused Clara: in the study they had acted like enemies, but now they seemed less cagey with one another, as if they were comrades who had shared a long history. Their attitudes towards Clara had also changed. She no longer felt like an unwanted guest; less like a victim and more like a discovery, a catalyst for a situation she did not understand. And these changes in attitude had occurred with the mere mention of one name; a name that cast a long shadow from the Labyrinth's past.

Clara looked to the Resident. 'What's going on?' she asked, surprised by how calm her voice sounded. 'Marney can't have been taken by Fabian Moor.'

Van Bam turned his metallic eyes to Samuel. They looked at each other without speaking.

'The dead stay dead,' Clara stated.

'Clara,' replied Van Bam, 'I suspect that once you truly comprehend with whom you have become embroiled, then ignorance might just seem the preferable option.'

When Clara replied, her voice was resolute. 'I'll tell you what I understand. Marney saved my life tonight –' she looked pointedly at Samuel – 'twice, it appears. I don't doubt she had her own reasons, but people don't exactly stick their necks out for me very often. If she's in trouble, I want to help.'

Samuel and Van Bam shared another look, and then Samuel rose from his chair and bowed his head at Clara. He walked behind the Resident, around the conference table, and came to her side.

'You've suffered tonight, and you don't know why,' he said. 'You want answers, and that's only right. But if you want to help Marney, Clara, you need to trust us. Trust me.' He took a seat beside her. 'Give me your hand.'

Clara stiffened. 'What?'

Samuel unclipped a small kit bag from his utility belt and unzipped it. 'Tonight, out in the Great Labyrinth, you scratched Charlie Hemlock's face,' he produced a slim scalpel and a tiny glass phial from the bag, 'deep enough to draw blood. Let me see you hand, please.'

The only thing Clara offered the old bounty hunter was a glare.

'Clara,' Van Bam said coolly. 'If Charlie Hemlock was employed by Fabian Moor, then he has information that is of vital use to us. If there is any hope of helping Marney, Hemlock needs to be rescued from a demon. Time is a factor. Please, do as Samuel asks.'

'Fine,' she snapped.

Though grimy, her hand seemed small and delicate when placed in Samuel's worn and calloused palm.

'Now tell me,' she said, 'how can Fabian Moor still be alive? He was killed by Gideon the Selfless.'

'And that is true, in a manner of speaking,' Van Bam said. 'At least, that is what I believed until tonight.'

He sat back in his chair, holding his cane across his lap, his face thoughtful. 'Clara, do you know why the Genii War began?'

As Samuel inspected her fingernails with the scalpel, Clara answered with a shrug. 'Spiral rebelled against the Timewatcher. He tried to enslave the Aelfir.'

Van Bam nodded. 'That is the truth, more or less.' He sighed. 'There was a time when the Labyrinth was the one place throughout all the realms that connected every House of the Aelfir. Spiral saw Labrys Town and the Great Labyrinth as a seat of power from which he could invade the Aelfirian realms, conquer them, bend them to his rule and raise an army large enough to defeat the Timewatcher. He almost succeeded in this when he sent his assassin to our town.'

Clara watched as Van Bam's grip tightened on his glass cane. She kept quiet as he continued.

'There are not many left alive who actually knew Fabian Moor, Clara, but those of us who did remember him as a phantom, a lingering nightmare that reminds us of the frailty of existence within the Labyrinth.'

'He was bad news,' Clara said. 'I don't need a history lesson.'

'Yes, you do,' Samuel said as he dragged the scalpel along the underside of her fingernail. 'Myths and legends, Clara – they have a habit of diluting the truth.'

'Fabian Moor was a demon,' Clara said, as if there was nothing else to say. 'Spiral sent him here to spread a plague among the denizens.'

'Yes, Spiral did send him here during the war,' Samuel said, and Clara winced as he dug out some dark matter from beneath her nail – dried blood and skin that had once belonged to Charlie Hemlock's face, she hoped – and scraped it into the phial. 'But he was much more than some demon spreading disease.'

'Fabian Moor was Spiral's most trusted general,' said Van Bam. 'He was a Genii, Clara.'

Clara's mouth worked silently for a moment. What was this rubbish? She was no expert on the Genii War, but she knew about the great magickers who had fought alongside Spiral, and it was well known that the Timewatcher had protected the Labyrinth - town and maze - from the Genii and prevented them from invading it. In fact all the fighting, every battle, had taken place in the realms of the Aelfir, and the denizens had seen nothing of the war at all. That was why Spiral sent a demon to spread a plague. Such a low creature went unnoticed when it smuggled itself into Labrys Town, hiding in the stolen cargo of treasure hunters. Or so the story went.

She scoffed. 'But he can't have been,' she said, and then winced again as Samuel scraped more dark matter from under her fingernails. She pulled a sour expression. 'The Genii never entered the Labyrinth. The Timewatcher prevented it.'

'There is much that will confuse you at this time, Clara,' Van Bam said. 'For now, let us suppose that Fabian Moor was not the demon that legend has led you to believe, that he was a Genii who indeed found a way to enter Labrys Town, and that he most certainly did not come here solely for the purpose of spreading a plague.'

'Then why did he come?' Clara said, irritated.

'It gets complicated,' Samuel replied. 'We always supposed that Moor was trying to supplant the Resident and take control of the Nightshade for his master.' He shrugged. 'It was logical. Without control of the Nightshade Spiral couldn't hope to command the doorways of the Great Labyrinth, which he needed to subjugate the Aelfir.

'But we never discovered the full extent of Moor's mission,' Van Bam said. 'We killed him before he could carry out his orders, or so we believed.'

'We?' Clara whispered. Something tingled inside her head, as if Marney's box of secrets was vibrating, encouraging her to see the obvious in this situation. 'You killed him?'

'That's right, Clara,' Samuel said. 'Gideon wasn't the only one to fight Fabian Moor.' His voice became bitter. 'And he certainly wasn't the only one to die.'

Butterflies flittered in Clara's gut. The buzzing of Marney's lingering presence spread through her body. The notion that this was not the first time she had met these two men struck her with renewed force. She peered closely into Samuel's face as he finished filling the little phial with dried skin and blood and pressed a cork into the end.

'What's going on?' she said, feeling suddenly hot, clammy. 'I know you – both of you.' Her voice was feverish. 'Why am I here?'

Samuel frowned at Clara's intense, frustrated expression, and then looked to the Resident.

'Tell me,' Clara hissed. 'What am I to you?'

'It is your right to know the truth,' Van Bam told her. 'Though I suspect Marney has already given you some indication of the company you are presently keeping.'

'What?' Clara demanded. 'What has she told me?'

Van Bam's metallic eyes seemed to stare straight into her soul. 'You have heard stories of us, Clara, perhaps more, even, than the legends of the Genii War. Samuel, Marney and I, we are the last of a clandestine organisation. And forty years ago Fabian Moor ripped us apart ...'