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“I don’t think that’s it.”

“Naturally you don’t. You’ve come to believe the most generous explanation—that I stopped it somehow. Most likely in a display of heroic sacrifice.”

“In my experience, most people deserve generosity,” I replied. “Particularly those determined to believe they don’t.”

“I won’t argue with you,” he said. “It would be as productive as trying to convince your felines of the merits of vegetables. And in one sense, you’re right. I stopped it. I was able to reverse the spell, with no small amount of difficulty. Given that no magician had ever invented an apocalypse enchantment before, nobody had ever created a spell for stopping one, so I had no templates to follow. My Artefacts weren’t any better organized back then than they are now, and it took some time for me to locate the only one that could have helped—a lantern enchanted by Vortigern to absorb magic and unravel spells. The only Artefact of Vortigern’s I ever owned—to my knowledge, anyhow.”

“The lantern absorbs magic?” I repeated. My head was spinning a little. The woman had created a book that could turn back time, and a lantern that could end an apocalypse? What was next, a salt shaker that could raise the dead?

Magicians! I thought, with a familiar feeling of weariness at the power they had over the lives of ordinary people.

Havelock nodded. “I thought that if I wove it with a brightening spell, I could banish the darkness that had fallen over the world, and reverse the spell Valérie had unleashed.”

“Like a sunrise,” I said, unable to stop myself from smiling. It was like something out of myth, like the story of the witch who created the night by weaving it on her loom.

“I never had a chance to try my theory,” he continued, turning away from me to gaze into the fire. “On the third night of the world’s ending, I made my way up Mount Royal to cast the enchantment from a height, but before I could, I was accosted by a stranger, and the lantern was stolen.”

“A magician?”

“I assumed so. I was being hunted by magicians from all over the world during those dark days. There’s an old folk belief among magicians that enchantments can be ended by killing whoever created them. It’s not true, but some people still believe it. This stranger couldn’t kill me, but they managed to make off with the one thing I thought could end the darkness.”

When he spoke again, he seemed to choose each word carefully, as if he’d given them a great deal of thought. “It was for the best, though. The lantern wasn’t designed to undo an enchantment of that scale. I would simply have wasted Vortigern’s spell—like most Artefacts, it could be cast just once. And it would have delayed me from realizing the truth.”

“And that was?”

“That it was up to me,” he said simply. “I had made the spell to end the world, and I had to unmake it. I couldn’t rely on Vortigern or anyone else. I had to travel to the Fourth Fathom of the Rivenwood, where I could gather magic powerful enough to create a twelve-layer spell of partitioning. A spell that was strong enough to save us all.”

So that was why he’d visited the Fourth Fathom, travelling deeper into the Rivenwood than most magicians ever ventured, and sacrificing a piece of himself—who knew how large—in the process. Yet it had been his responsibility in the first place, even if it hadn’t been his fault, and so I did not condescend to him by praising him for it.

I looked up from the fire to find him watching me with an unreadable expression. I wondered if he expected me to lecture him, or perhaps be overcome with awe or horror at the harrowing tale. Before I could do either, though, I noticed Thoreau pawing at the bars of his cage. “Excuse me,” I said, then rose and unlocked the cage door.

Havelock gave a quiet laugh. “We’re talking about the apocalypse, and all you can think about is your cats.”

“I didn’t stop caring for them when the world was ending,” I said drily. “So you can’t expect me to be distracted by the memory of it.”

He watched as I exchanged Thoreau’s blanket for a fresh one. “I was right. You never rest, do you?”

“I suppose not,” I said absently, lifting Thoreau and cradling him in my arms.

“What’s wrong?”

“Oh—nothing out of the ordinary. One of our newcomers came in with a bad case of fleas. They’ve spread to at least three of the others, including Thoreau. It’s worse for him, because they trouble his arthritis. He has difficulty sleeping.”

I scratched the old cat’s chin, and he leaned into me, burrowing into the warmth of my arms. “I’ve treated them, but it will take a day or two for every flea to die off.”

“Charming creatures,” Havelock said. “If they aren’t clawing your leg or leaving dead things scattered about, they’re spreading parasites.”

I frowned. “Who clawed your leg?”

“That white-pawed demon, of course.”

I resumed massaging Thoreau’s scrawny back. I disliked seeing the old cat in any amount of discomfort; it made me feel I had failed him.

“Here,” Havelock said. He touched one of his rings and murmured an incantation. A wind fluttered over us, and over the cat cages, smelling of something sharp and peppery.

“That should do it,” he said. “It’s a spell for ridding a place of pests. Pity it doesn’t work on certain felines. Good night.”

And then, as if what he’d done had been a mere trifle—no doubt it seemed that way to him—he disappeared into the back room.