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Élise insisted that we stop, despite my objections, arguing that she could not be expected to save the world when she was fainting from hunger.

“We’re not saving the world,” I said. “Havelock is—mostly we’re just getting in his way.”

But as usual, Élise won the argument, and we purchased a paper bag of chocolatines from a blithe, red-faced woman before hurrying on. The towering cross at the top of the mountain was stark against the glittering sky, until abruptly it was shrouded in cloud. It began pouring when at last we reached the stairs that would take us to the summit.

“This is ridiculous,” Élise said as we huffed and puffed our way up. “How are we supposed to find Havelock, particularly in the dark?”

I didn’t reply. My instincts had brought us to this time, but it was harder to trust them now. The trees lining the stairs were wet with rain, and as they closed around us, the world grew so dark that I could hardly see where I was going. Black birds flitted through the trees, and I started every time I heard them rustling. They couldn’t be the same birds I’d glimpsed in the Rivenwood—could they? Why did they give me the same impression of something uncanny?

As we neared the top of the stairs, the rain stopped, chased away by a blast of icy wind that brought the stars out again. The stairs turned into a path that rambled up the final slope of Mount Royal, which would bring us to the observation terrace. I pulled Élise to a stop.

“Here,” I said, surprised I hadn’t thought of it before.

“What?” Élise huffed.

“Well, Havelock will come this way, won’t he?”

Élise bent over, holding her side and breathing hard. We visited the park from time to time, but we rarely scaled the stairs so fast. “So what do we do? Talk to him? You’ll have to take the lead—I never learned the knack for it.”

“No,” I said. “He can’t recognize us—we’ll keep our hoods drawn. I’m not going to be responsible for time coming apart.”

Élise groaned again. “These magicians! Do they ever think to themselves that perhaps they have too much power? That nobody should be able to make an enchantment that unravels time or ends the world?”

“I doubt it,” I said. “People with too much power aren’t usually the ones harmed by their mistakes, are they?”

“So how do we get the lantern? We hide behind a tree and—trip him?”

We gazed at each other glumly. There was nothing more to be said—it was a ridiculous plan, of course, and we could only wait for it to unfold. I could see the city through a window in the trees. Its unnatural darkness made its cobbled streets and church spires, as familiar as my own name, look like the hills and valleys of an otherworldly landscape.

I ate one of the chocolatines, which only added to my sense of the ridiculous. Somehow it did not seem appropriate for a quest of this magnitude—we had travelled through time itself to accost the world’s greatest living magician, and here we stood, huddled awkwardly in the park, eating pastry. It felt amateurish, a sure portent of failure, but what did I know? Perhaps magicians did this sort of thing all the time.

Élise, of course, seemed perfectly unperturbed by such reflections, rifling noisily through the bag to tear pieces off the chocolatines and licking her fingers clean. A part of me wanted to throttle her; the larger part wanted to throw my arms around her and sob with relief that she was there. I was remembering to be afraid again. We were about to confront the man who had caused all this, and even if that man was Havelock, we weren’t friends here. To him I would be a thief, and an enemy.

An hour passed, and still Havelock did not appear. The black kitten kept us somewhat occupied as she awoke from her slumber. She demanded to be put down; then, after giving her surroundings a desultory sniff, to be picked up again. These deliberations she repeated two minutes later.

“What if we’ve missed him?” I fretted.

“Then we’ll know we were supposed to miss him,” Élise replied, irritatingly logical. “As this has all happened already, hasn’t it?”

I couldn’t be so calm about it—though I could tell that Élise wasn’t as calm as she seemed, but was making herself pretend, for my sake. Thunder boomed and lightning flickered, before the clouds were swept away to reveal the dazzling sky with its overwhelming palette of colour.

“Aren’t you glad we ate?” Élise said.

I gave the ghost of a laugh. I was. My stomach was in knots, but the sugar had blessed me with a nervy wakefulness, and I felt as ready as I could be to confront Havelock.

Suddenly, Élise gripped my arm. Far below us, in the street that curved around the base of the mountain, a light had bloomed. It shot down the street and went out.

“What was that?” Élise said.

Almost as soon as she spoke the words, there came an echoing crash that shook the ground. It sounded as if one of the lantern-posts had been toppled onto the cobblestones. This was followed by another, and another, and then a second light flared and went out.

“Someone’s coming,” Élise said, and dragged me off the path and into the forest.

A heartbeat later, a man came charging up the path. I knew he was a magician instantly, not only because a small globe of light darted ahead of him, illuminating his path, but because he was moving too quickly. It was as if he’d placed an enchantment on his shoes that gave a bounce to his stride, making the steep path easy going.

It wasn’t Havelock—the man’s frame was too bulky, and even with the enchantment I could tell he didn’t move like Havelock, who had an eerie grace. The man didn’t notice us hiding among the trees, and within seconds he and his light were gone.

“Who do you think he was running away from?” Élise murmured.