I will take my leave of you,” Mr. Ravensmith told the Wizard. “I do have an actual paying client awaiting me.”

Oona stood apart from the applicants, all of whom had stood up from the bench upon the Wizard’s entrance, and were now on their feet in a line behind the table. Oona watched the proceedings, feeling slightly dazed. She was still reeling from what she had done, trying to understand what had happened, and why she had used the magic. Something deep inside of her had stirred. And it hadn’t been just anger. She had been quite angry and afraid the night before in Igregious Goodfellow’s hideout. No magic had come spilling out then. No. Whatever the reason behind her spontaneous act, it had something to do with the thought of losing her father’s magnifying glass.

The Wizard glanced in the lawyer’s direction, but before he could give the lawyer leave to go, the door to the parlor banged open, startling everyone.

“Sorry I’m late!” cried a voice, as a tall, gangly man stepped into the room. He spoke in a loud, theatrical voice that Oona found both overbearing and highly irk-some. She did a double take, realizing that the latecomer was none other than Hector Grimsbee, the blind man whom she had seen disappear from the steps in front of the museum. He was no longer carrying his red umbrella, and Oona noticed that, for some reason, his clothing appeared quite disheveled. He looked as if he had been in some sort of scuffle. The top of his head was wrapped in a thick white bandage, and an oily bloodstain could be seen seeping through the raggedy cloth at his forehead.

“And you would be?” asked Mr. Ravensmith.

“Hector Grimsbee,” said the mustached man. “I am an applicant for the position of Wizard’s apprentice.”

Oona gaped at him. Though there was no age limit for applicants, the man appeared to be at least forty years old, which in Oona’s opinion was far too old to be applying for the position of apprentice. Grimsbee turned his head, sniffing in her direction, and Oona saw that the man’s eyes were completely white, devoid of any pupils at all. Like two bottomless pools of milk, they appeared to look right at her. Oona stepped back as Grimsbee grinned, tweezing the end of his bullhorn mustache between his fingers.

“You are late,” said the Wizard, sounding very displeased.

“And you need to sign the contract to be eligible for the position,” Mr. Ravensmith said, sighing. “It’s on the table.” He took hold of Grimsbee’s arm, as if to guide the blind man to the table, but Grimsbee jerked his arm away.

“I do not need assistance. I can smell my way.” His nostrils swelled, nearly doubling in size, so that they resembled nothing less than two enormous tunnels in the center of his face. He stepped forward, moving quite confidently around an unoccupied chair, stepping over a footstool in the process, and then proceeded to march directly toward the enormous swinging pendulum. Everyone gasped, but before anyone could say anything, Grimsbee abruptly changed directions and walked to the table with the contracts on it. Leaning down, he sniffed inquisitively at the large book that Adler Iree had left on the tabletop, and then promptly followed his nose to the two rolled-up contracts. He straightened. “There are two documents here, each with very distinctive smells. Which do I sign?”

Mr. Ravensmith moved quickly to his side, appearing quite astounded at Grimsbee’s extraordinary sense of smell. The lawyer slid the proper contract in front of the blind man and handed him the fountain pen. Grimsbee signed his name … and then pocketed the pen. With a twist of his mustache, Grimsbee fixed the lawyer with his sightless eyes, as if daring Mr. Ravensmith to ask for the pen back. Mr. Ravensmith, who seemed all at once quite anxious to get as far away from Grimsbee as possible, only said: “I believe my work is done here.” He brushed nervously at the sleeve of his jacket and turned to the Wizard. “With your leave, sir.”

“Of course,” said the Wizard, and the lawyer hurried out of the room, closing the door behind him. The Wizard looked Grimsbee over. “Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?”

Grimsbee cleared his throat, and, utilizing the full volume of his theatrical voice, said: “Most likely you saw me upon the grand stage at the Dark Street Theater, and were wowed by my incredible thespian skills.”

He gave a little bow.

The Wizard snapped his fingers. “Oh, yes, that’s it. You are an actor. There was an artist’s sketch of your face in the Dark Street Tribune about a year ago. I believe you were accused of dropping a sandbag on a director’s head.”

Grimsbee’s face flushed red. “That was never proven.”

“I see,” the Wizard said. He peered suspiciously at the bloody bandage around Grimsbee’s head, but made no mention of it. “Well, please, Mr. Grimsbee. Take your place next to the others.”

Grimsbee sniffed the air and took his place beside Sanora Crone. He turned his ghoulish face down toward the young witch. “You smell awful.”

Sanora looked ready to cry, and Oona had a good mind to tell the blind man to keep his horrible mouth shut, but before she could do so, Isadora pointed at Grimsbee and said: “Hey, I know you. You live in one of the apartments above my mother’s dress shop.”

Grimsbee nodded, tweezing his mustache between his fingers before adding, rather defensively: “I live on the third floor, right above Mr. and Mrs. Bop. What’s it to you?”

“I was only saying …” Isadora trailed off, clearly disliking the blind man’s haunting stare.

The Wizard clapped his hands together, catching everyone’s attention.

“Here is how the Choosing will go.” He walked to the center of the room and stood just in front of the pendulum, watching it swing back and forth several times before turning to face the applicants. “I am now going to ask each of you to—”

But the Wizard suddenly staggered, his eyes round with surprise. He took in a sharp breath and then buckled forward, dropping to the floor. Oona gasped.

Someone shouted: “What’s wrong with him?”

Someone else screamed.

Samuligan darted forward, dropping down beside the fallen Wizard, the sound of his bony knees echoing against the floor. Oona rushed to his side, a thousand frantic thoughts racing through her head. What was the matter with her uncle? A stroke? A heart attack?

But even as Oona prepared for the worst, she quickly found that her mind was in no way equipped to understand the sight before her. Her breath hitched in her throat as she peered over Samuligan’s shoulder at her uncle’s body, only to discover that there was no body there at all, just the Wizard’s empty robes sprawled out flat, like a deflated balloon on the floor.

She stared in disbelief. A long metal dagger protruded from the empty robes, sticking straight through the fabric and pinning it to the floor. The hilt twinkled in the sconce light, the double-edged blade protruding from the very place where her uncle’s chest should have been.

Deacon let out a sharp cry.

“What has happened?” asked Hector Grimsbee, though oddly enough, his blank eyes appeared to be looking directly at the spot where the empty robes lay. “Who screamed?”

“What has happened to him?” Oona cried.

Samuligan shook his head, eyebrows drawn closely together, his expression uncharacteristically bewildered.

“Is he…?” Oona began, but trailed off, unwilling to finish the thought. It felt as if someone had reached inside of her chest and was crushing her heart in a tight fist. It was hard to breathe. She glanced up into the faces of the applicants, but their expressions were too difficult to read through her blurred vision. Tears welled in her eyes. This could not be happening. It was simply a bad dream. She would wake up and laugh it away. It was just not possible that the Wizard was … was …

She tried to force the word from her lips. “Is he…?”

“Dead?” said Samuligan. He shook his head. “I cannot say.”

He wrenched the dagger from the floor. There was a sizzling sound, like bacon in a hot frying pan. With a cry of pain Samuligan flung the dagger away. It bounced across the carpet before skittering to a stop near the table. Oona pushed herself quickly to her feet, confusion blurring her thoughts. She wiped at her eyes, her gaze rolling from the smoking dagger on the floor to Samuligan, who cradled his singed hand against his chest—thin wisps of smoke floating upward from his palm.

“That is no ordinary dagger,” Samuligan said, his voice like a whip. His haunting eyes scanned the room as he rose to his full height. “And this is no accident. Someone has deliberately stabbed the Wizard.”

“What?” Oona said, shaking her head. She could see the Wizard’s empty robes at her feet, and the slit that the dagger had made in the purple fabric. “Someone did this to him? How is that possible?”

Deacon launched himself from Oona’s shoulder and landed beside the dagger, where he hastily inspected the emblem of a half-lidded eye etched into the hilt. The dagger was small and thin, with almost no cross guard to speak of, and shiny as polished silver.

“This blade is not used for stabbing,” he said at last, and Oona saw his thick, black feathers shudder. “No, not for stabbing, but for throwing! It is the kind of dagger thrown not with the hand, but one that is thrown with the mind. There are only two daggers such as this that have ever been known to exist. They are known as Fay Mors Expugno and Fay Mors Mortis.”

Isadora Iree gasped. “The Faerie Catcher and the Faerie Death!”

Samuligan fixed her with his hard gaze. “You have heard of them, Miss Iree?”

Isadora glanced around nervously. “We … ah … learn all about faerie lore at the Academy of Fine Young Ladies.”

Deacon hopped uneasily away from the dagger before returning to Oona’s shoulder. “Then, Miss Iree, you would know that both daggers were created during the Great Faerie War, by the Magicians of Old. They were weapons created with the specific purpose of either kidnapping or assassinating the most powerful highborn faeries and military captains. Nearly a hundred years after the war ended, the daggers became the very first acquisitions of the Museum of Magical History, and they have resided there—out of public view—for hundreds of years.”

Oona’s gaze darted toward Hector Grimsbee, whom she herself had seen standing in front of the museum that very morning. Grimsbee’s face appeared inscrutable. Her heart was thrumming, and it took all of Oona’s concentration to focus on what Deacon was saying. It was all very important information, she knew, but it was so hard to think straight with her uncle’s empty robes lying at her feet.

Perhaps he is still alive, somehow, she thought. What was it Deacon said about kidnapping?

“The two daggers were twins,” Deacon continued. “But they had very different powers. Expugno was the name of the dagger enchanted to capture and imprison. Thus, its name: the Faerie Catcher. It was intended to be used to capture highborn faeries, but was instead used only once to capture a certain high-level general in the Faerie Army. That general was Samuligan the Fay. Is that not true?”

Samuligan nodded grimly. “To be sure, it was the Expugno dagger that captured me over five hundred years ago.”

“But Samuligan is now a servant of Pendulum House,” Oona said, and she seized upon the faint hope that perhaps the Wizard had only been transported to another part of the house. “Do you mean that Uncle Alexander might be in Pendulum House somewhere?” she asked.

Deacon and Samuligan shared a look.

“I’m afraid not,” Samuligan said. “When I was captured by the Magicians of Old, the dagger transported me to a prison: a dark place with no light at all. I later learned that that heinously dark place was, in fact, a tiny cell at the top of a great, windowless tower. But at the time it did not matter where I was, since I was no longer in my own body. For you see, not only was I locked away in the tower of eternal night, but also imprisoned within the body of a lizard. In that reptile state I was unable to use my magical powers to try and escape.”

Samuligan pointed a gangly finger at the portrait of Oswald the Great and his lizard, Lulu, before continuing: “It was Oswald himself who captured me. He had a fondness for lizards, as I’m sure you all know … and so it was a lizard that he chose as the form of my ultimate prison. How long I remained in that state, I cannot say, but one day Oswald himself came to the tower and released me from my enchantment, returning me to my original faerie form, but only after he and his fellow magicians worked such heavy magic upon me that I was forever locked into a life of service to the occupants of Pendulum House.”

The story—which Oona had never heard before in its entirety—caused a shiver to snake down her spine. A thought occurred to her. “The Black Tower in the cemetery,” she said. “You were locked in the Goblin Tower!”

Samuligan nodded. “It was the Goblin Tower, indeed.”

Oona looked down at the shiny blade on the floor and said: “If that is the same dagger that was used on you, Samuligan, then that must mean that Uncle Alexander is locked up inside that tower right now!” A wave of frantic urgency washed over her at the realization. “We have to get him out! This instant! What are we waiting for?”

Once again, Deacon and Samuligan shared a look.

“What? What is it now?” Oona asked. Her frustration was threatening to boil over. “Why are you looking at each other?”

Reluctantly, Deacon said: “But you are forgetting that the Expugno dagger had a twin: Fay Mors Mortis. The Faerie Death. The Magicians enchanted Mortis to not only kill whomsoever it struck but to wipe the victim out of existence completely.” He paused, looking gloomily down at the dagger on the floor. “The two daggers were formed from the same mold. I cannot say which of the two daggers this one is.”

Oona’s heart plummeted. Her knees turned to water, and suddenly Adler Iree was at her side, supporting her. His touch was cold but comforting. For a moment she thought to turn to him and bury her face in his shoulder, and there let the tears consume her, until it suddenly occurred to her that someone in this room must have done this to her uncle. It could have been anyone of them … including Adler.

Deacon fluttered to the back of a chair, raking his black eyes across the room and echoing Oona’s thought. “How someone in this room came to possess the dagger, I cannot say. But surely one of you is the attacker.”

Oona stepped away from Adler, whose cloak hung from his shoulders, raggedy and frayed. The boy did not appear to notice her move away. He seemed deep in consideration. At last, he said: “If that dagger, whichever one it is, Expugno or Mortis, is thrown with the mind, then the attacker could have thrown it from anywhere. Or they could throw it again at any moment.”

Lamont John-Michael Arlington Fitch III took in a startled gasp.

Deacon glanced suspiciously in the boy’s direction. “No. The magics used to enchant the daggers were very complicated, even for the likes of the Magicians of Old. There were strong stipulations set on the objects in order to make them work properly. It could be thrown only once within a twenty-four-hour period, which would give it time to … well, to recharge, you could say. The spells also stated very clearly that the daggers would work only under the following conditions, and I quote from the Encyclopedia Arcanna: ‘For purposes of accuracy, the throwing of either dagger must take place within a confined space, such as a room. The dagger must be carried into the room by the attacker, who in turn must visually see the victim from a distance of no more than ten paces away.’ Also, for fear of their own creations being used against them, the Magicians of Old enchanted the weapons so that no faerie could touch them without burning their flesh.”

All eyes turned to Samuligan, who raised his hand, displaying his char-black palm. The smell of burned flesh still permeated the air.

“You mean that only someone in this room could have done this?” Oona asked.

“That is correct,” Deacon said. “Someone must have brought the dagger into the room and seen the Wizard with their own eyes in order to have thrown it with their mind.”

“I want to go home,” said Sanora Crone, the young witch. Oona realized it was the first time she had heard the girl speak, and she sounded terribly frightened.

“No one is to go anywhere until the police have been fetched,” Deacon said in his most authoritative voice.

“But Deacon, we must get to the cemetery at once,” Oona said. “The only way to find out if Uncle Alexander is dead or alive is to discover if he is inside that tower.”

“That will have to wait, Miss Crate,” said Samuligan.

The words angered her. Oona whirled around to glare up at him, the hem of her skirt swirling about her ankles in a storm of fabric. “What are you talking about, Samuligan? Wait for what? We don’t know if my uncle is dead or alive, and you tell me to wait?”

Samuligan met her gaze with a soft, pitying look. It was not unkind, and no doubt was meant as comforting, and yet it was a look that Oona had never before seen upon the face of the faerie servant. It was not mocking or amused. It was a look of utter compassion and understanding, as if he knew all too well the horrible sense of panic that was rising up in her, threatening to overwhelm her completely.

Deacon flew to her shoulder, and when he spoke, it was in a gentler voice than he had been using before. “Samuligan is correct. The Black Tower resides in the center of the cemetery, and it is now past seven o’clock. The sun has set.”

Oona shook her head. “What does that have to do with…?” But she trailed off. Her mouth opened and closed several times as she realized what Deacon was talking about. Finally, she said: “Oh. Of course. No one may enter the cemetery by night.”

“They would be ridiculously stupid to try,” said Isadora. “And doomed to fail.”

Oona glared at her, but she knew Isadora was right.

Adler dropped into a chair. “The army would certainly see to it that no one enters the City of the Dead after dark.”

At the mention of the name, City of the Dead, the room seemed to grow somewhat colder and the lights slightly dimmer. But of course that might just have been Oona’s imagination. It was at that moment that Lamont John-Michael Arlington Fitch III stepped meekly forward before asking: “I beg your pardon, but what is the City of the Dead, and why is it guarded by an army?”

Oona peered at the boy suspiciously. She knew absolutely nothing about the New Yorker, and for all she knew it had been he who had attacked her uncle, no matter how wide-eyed and confused he may appear. Indeed, Oona felt like accusing him on the spot. Or accusing them all. But she contained herself with the realization that that was precisely the kind of behavior employed by Inspector White. No doubt Oona’s father, a far superior police inspector, would have kept his suspicions to himself until he had more proof.

Surprisingly, it was Hector Grimsbee who answered Lamont’s question. In a cold, hushed stage whisper—like a man preparing to tell some horrible ghost story—he said: “The City of the Dead is what the residents of Dark Street call the cemetery after dark. It is where the ghosts of a thousand souls rise from their graves each night to dance and play amongst the headstones and mausoleums. A place where the living are not permitted to enter, and where the ghosts of a regiment of soldiers—poltergeists with shimmering shields and glowing swords, dead for five hundred years—stand vigilant guard at the gates of the cemetery. From dusk until dawn they stand their watch, allowing no spirit out, nor any living person in. And pity the fool who attempts to cross their path, for they will soon join the dead at their play.”

Lamont gazed at the blind man, disbelieving. But when he turned to the others, and they all nodded their agreement that this was, in fact, the way of it, the New York boy shuddered, and like Adler Iree, he, too, took a seat.

“And besides,” Deacon added. “Even if the Wizard is locked inside the tower, you will need to discover how to get inside, and then of course there are the goblins to consider.”

Oona gazed up at the goblins in the tapestries on the walls. They seemed to be mocking her with their pointy ears and penetrating gazes. She sighed heavily, feeling very tired and very angry at the same time. “Well, it seems we must wait until tomorrow to check the tower. But for tonight, there is still a way to find out if the Wizard is dead or alive.”

“And how is that?” Deacon asked inquisitively.

Oona took in the applicants one by one. “We make the attacker confess.”