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At the sight of the enchantment, I went as still as a deer at the snap of a twig. All I could see was the hole in the wall of the old shelter. A small, detached part of me noted that I was almost certainly in shock, and also that I should probably make for the door with all haste. But the woman was still holding Thoreau, and there were the other cats, only a few of whom were paying us any attention—the bulk slept or groomed themselves, characteristically disdainful of all but their own concerns, even and including an impending magical cataclysm. Clowder was licking her rear end.

“You won’t summon him?” the woman said. “Very well—I’ll do it myself. He does love to complain that I’m too dramatic.”

And she began to tear the place apart.

Thoreau, thankfully, leapt free of her arms, disappearing up the stairs, followed closely by Banshee and His Majesty. The entire building began to shake, the tables lurching about violently, and several of the cat cages fell to the ground, their occupants yowling. The windows shattered, taking the warmth with them, and the storm spat a mouthful of snow into the shop. A tremendous crack formed in the ceiling, raining plaster upon us, and the filing cabinets I had spent a full day reorganizing toppled onto their sides, spilling papers everywhere.

I fell to my knees and began to crawl towards the cats—it was pure instinct; any rational thought had been swallowed by a roiling panic. If I’d been thinking clearly, I would have launched myself at her, for if I hadn’t guessed it before, I knew now that she was a magician, and clearly bent on shaking the place with her magic until it collapsed to its foundations. She stood with her palms uplifted and her eyes half-shut, smiling as she murmured something I couldn’t hear, like a saint overcome by religious ecstasy.

I managed to wrench open the door of Clowder’s cage, which had fallen to the floor, and she and the kittens raced for the second story. I didn’t know that they would be much safer up there, but perhaps the windows had smashed upstairs too, and they could clamber along the rooftops if the place began to cave in. I got another cage open, and Fantôme, more sensibly, made for the empty windows and the snowy street beyond, as did Lynx. I tried to open the next cage, which housed an enormous orange cat named Choux, but my fingers were trembling so that I could barely grasp the latch. Choux, as helpful as cats generally are in emergencies, swatted at my hand.

The trapdoor banged open so violently that even above the creaking and trembling of the shop, I jumped. The door to the back room had come off its hinges and hung leaning against the wall, so I saw it when my mysterious downstairs neighbour made his appearance—though I wished I had not.

It was not a man at all. In fact, it was much closer to the ghost of my nightmares. What emerged from the trapdoor was more absence than presence, a shift in the shadows that had the rough outline of a figure, and that figure was only somewhat human. It was too tall, for one thing, all teeth and claws, and it moved with the grace of a panther, trailing shadow that swirled with burning embers. Never have I seen a thing more otherworldly or horrible. I would have screamed if shock hadn’t stolen my voice.

The woman had taken no notice of the trapdoor opening—probably she had thought she’d caused the noise, given that she was actively trying to bring down the roof. The crack was lengthening, and a chunk of ceiling fell to the floor and shattered. The shadow-thing collided with the woman, sending her sprawling across the floor. And then, abruptly, the creature vanished, and I became aware that a man stood by the broken back door, as if he’d come up behind the monster.

He was dark-haired and graceful, with glasses that sat askew on his nose. And he was dreadfully handsome, but in an almost jarring way; his face had a mismatched, pieced-together quality, as if painted by a portraitist whose model was changed out before each session. I sensed the same strangeness in him that I had seen in the mysterious visitors, who put me in mind of figures from a Renaissance painting by an old master, only in him, this effect was more concentrated and startling. He was the sort of person one couldn’t help staring at, an optical illusion my eyes needed to solve.

The shock of his appearance was lessened, however, by his undignified attire. He had clearly been abed, and was barefoot and dressed in what looked like navy blue pyjamas. He wore as many rings and earrings as the woman did, as well as a strange pendant with a gold coin dangling from it, but they didn’t create the same effect on him; with the oversized pyjamas, he looked more like a boy playacting as a pirate. His dark hair was in tangles where it wasn’t sticking straight up.

“Hello, Lock,” the woman said, with an uneven sort of laugh—she had struck the ground hard and was sprawled in an elegant heap against the counter, half propped on one elbow. “Did I wake you?”

“I think you woke every inhabitant of this street since the Middle Ages,” he said, grabbing at the doorframe as the building gave another shudder. It was only an aftershock, though; the terrible earthquake had stopped. “Did you not think, Valérie, that you might bring the building down on your own head as well as mine?”

Even through my shock, a part of me registered the strangeness of this, that he would show any concern at all for this woman. He came towards her as if to help her to her feet, but she touched one of her earrings and he flew backwards and struck the wall. I thought she did something more than that, for the air rippled oddly around him for a moment, until he made a sharp gesture, then it cleared.

“What was that?” the woman said, looking uncertain for the first time since her arrival. “I’ve never felt a counterspell like that before.”

“Haven’t you?” His tone was still sardonic, but something in it had hardened. “Perhaps it wasn’t any counterspell of mine, Ri, only a stirring of empathy that bungled your incantation. Don’t worry, I’m sure the sensation will wear off quickly.”

“Still that childish attitude,” she snapped. “Still slipping and weaving your way out of the simplest of questions. You even look like a boy.”

“Yes, I apologize for not being more presentable. I didn’t know you would be ransacking my shop. Give me notice next time; I’ll put on a suit.”

As he spoke, he removed a leather pouch from his pocket, then excavated a small golden coin. He lifted the coin and spoke a single word that made the thoughts rattle about in my head as if they’d turned to coins themselves, and which I forgot as soon as I tried to remember it.

The woman—magician, I made myself think, even as my mind shrank back from the word—rose into the air in the most horrible and uncanny fashion, as if there were a hook in her chest drawing her up. At the same time, the air seemed to solidify into ghostly ropes binding her arms to her sides. Not quickly enough—she managed to wrench one hand free, and grasped the ring she wore on her thumb.

She spoke another unintelligible word, and a bolt of lightning—lightning!—arched from the ring towards the other magician. I found my voice then and screamed like a child, but he only lifted a hand and caught it somehow, holding the light pooled in his palm like liquid gold. He held his hand up and closed his fingers into a fist, and as the light went out, a thunderclap shook the shop.

“Predictable,” he said, sounding disappointed. He brushed his hands together, which sent little sparks skittering over the floor. “The thunder was a novel touch, though. Give up, Ri—you’ve made it past the wards, but you will go no farther.”

“If I were predictable,” the woman said, her voice strained by the ghostly rope now snaking along her throat, “you would not be in your nightclothes.”

Somehow, she managed to twist her arm just enough to shove her hand into her pocket, from which she drew a piece of paper folded into something that resembled a bird. She rasped a different word—that is all I can say, that it was different from the others—and then something enormous and weighty was descending from the ceiling.

I saw it immediately, crouched on the floor as I was, looking up at the magicians as they fought. But Havelock Renard—if it truly was him—was still watching the woman, perhaps anticipating another bolt of lightning.

If I had to put a name to it, I would have said it was a dragon. Its head was shaped like some deep-sea behemoth’s, yawning open to reveal glittering and jagged shards of crystalline teeth, and it was covered in scales of emerald and obsidian. Its eyes were pure flame, a fire that bloomed also at the back of its throat, as if the creature had been shaped from some hellish subterranean cavern.

When at last the magician sensed the doom descending towards him, his ringed hand whipped up, and his mouth opened to shout something. But it was too late, and his rings were devoured along with the rest of him. The creature’s mouth closed over him with an oddly gentle snap, a small morsel for such an immensity.

There was a moment when the only sound in the shop was the low growling of the remaining cats. Then the monster burst apart in a shower of jewels and knife-sharp crystals.

I screamed again, shielding myself with my arms, but instead of being impaled by gemstones, I felt myself struck by many small rustling things, as if I’d angered a horde of moths. I opened my eyes and found myself surrounded by paper birds, lightly singed and smoking. They’d been made from receipts, I realized dimly—there was a typewritten list on the wing of the closest one. Panais was the only word I could make out.

“Eight cents,” I murmured. They’d been overcharged.