“Nice,” the daemon said with a low whistle of appreciation. The dogs immediately started barking again.
Gallowglass bundled us all inside, muttering darkly about sight lines and defensive positions and possible hearing damage to Apple and Bean. Peace was achieved once he got down on the floor in front of the fireplace and let the dogs scramble all over him, licking and burrowing as if their pack’s alpha had been returned to them after a long absence.
“What are their names?” Phoebe inquired, trying to count the number of tails in the squirming mound.
“Hansel and Gretel, obviously.” Timothy looked at Phoebe as though she were hopeless.
“And the other four?” Phoebe asked.
“Oscar. Molly. Rusty. And Puddles.” Timothy pointed to each dog in turn.
“He likes to play outside in the rain?”
“No,” Timothy replied. “She likes to piddle on the floor. Her name was Penelope, but everybody in the village calls her Puddles now.”
A graceful segue from this subject to the Book of Life was impossible, so I plunged forward. “Did you buy a page from an illuminated manuscript that has a tree on it?”
“Yep.” Timothy blinked.
“Would you be willing to sell it to me?” There was no point in being coy.
“Nope.”
“We’re prepared to pay handsomely for it.” Phoebe might not like the de Clermonts’ casual indifference to where pictures were hung, but she was beginning to see the benefits of their purchasing power.
“It’s not for sale.” Timothy ruffled the ears of one of the dogs who then returned to Gallowglass and began to gnaw on the toe of his boot.
“Can I see it?” Perhaps Timothy would let me borrow it, I thought.
“Sure.” Timothy divested himself of the parachute and strode out of the room. We scrambled to keep up.
He led us through several rooms that had clearly been designed for different purposes from the ones they were now used for. A dining room had a battered drum kit set up in the center with DEREK AND THE DERANGERS painted on the bass-drum head, and another room looked like an electronics graveyard except for the chintz sofas and beribboned wallpaper.
“It’s in there. Somewhere,” Timothy said, gesturing at the next room.
“Holy Mother of God,” Gallowglass said, astonished.
“There” was the former library. “Somewhere” covered a multitude of possible hiding places, including unopened shipping crates and mail, cardboard cartons full of sheet music going back to the 1920s, and stacks and stacks of old newspapers. There was a large collection of clock faces of all sizes, descriptions, and vintages, too.
And there were manuscripts. Thousands of manuscripts.
“I think it’s in a blue folder,” Timothy said, scratching his chin. He had obviously started shaving at some point earlier in the day but only partially completed the task, leaving two grizzled patches.
“How long have you been buying old books?” I asked, picking up the first one that came to hand. It was an eighteenth-century student science notebook, German, and of no particular value except to a scholar of Enlightenment education.
“Since I was thirteen. That’s when my gran died and left me this place. My mom left when I was five, and my dad, Derek, died of an accidental overdose when I turned nine, so it was just me and Gran after that.” Timothy looked around the room fondly. “I’ve been restoring it ever since. Do you want to see my paint chips for the gallery upstairs?”
“Maybe later,” I said.
“Okay.” His face fell.
“Why do manuscripts interest you?” When trying to get answers from daemons and undergraduates, it was best to ask genuinely open-ended questions.
“They’re like the house—they remind me of something I shouldn’t forget,” Timothy said, as though that explained everything.
“With any luck one of them will remind him where he put the page from your book,” Gallowglass said under his breath. “If not, it’s going to take us weeks to go through all this rubbish.”
We didn’t have weeks. I wanted Ashmole 782 out of the Bodleian and stitched back together so that Matthew could come home. Without the Book of Life, we were vulnerable to the Congregation, Benjamin, and whatever private ambitions Knox and Gerbert might harbor. Once it was safely in our possession, they would all have to deal with us on our terms—scion or no scion. I pushed up my sleeves.
“Would it be all right with you, Timothy, if I used magic in your library?” It seemed polite to ask.
“Will it be loud?” Timothy asked. “The dogs don’t like noise.”
“No,” I said, considering my options. “I think it will be completely silent.”
“Oh, well, that’s okay, then,” he said, relieved. He put his goggles back on for additional security.
“More magic, Auntie?” Gallowglass’s eyebrows lowered. “You’ve been using an awful lot of it lately.”
“Wait until tomorrow,” I murmured. If I got all three missing pages, I was going to the Bodleian. Then it was gloves-off time.
A flurry of papers rose from the floor.
“You’ve started already?” Gallowglass said, alarmed.
“No,” I said.
“Then what’s causing the ruckus?” Gallowglass moved toward the agitated pile.
A tail wagged from between a leather-bound folio and a box of pens.
“Puddles!” Timothy said.
The dog emerged, tail first, pulling a blue folder.
“Good doggy,” Gallowglass crooned. He crouched down and held out his hand. “Bring it to me.”
Puddles stood with the missing page from Ashmole 782 gripped in her teeth, looking very pleased with herself. She did not, however, take it to Gallowglass.
“She wants you to chase her,” Timothy explained.
Gallowglass scowled. “I’m not chasing that dog.”
In the end we all chased her. Puddles was the fastest, cleverest dachshund who’d ever lived, darting under furniture and feinting left and then right before dashing away again. Gallowglass was speedy, but he was not small. Puddles slipped through his fingers again and again, her glee evident.
Finally Puddles’ need to pant meant that she had to drop the now slightly moist blue folder in front of her paws. Gallowglass took the opportunity to reach in and secure it.
“What a good girl!” Timothy picked up the squirming dog. “You’re going to win the Great Dachshund Games this summer. No question.” A slip of paper was attached to one of Puddles’ claws. “Hey. There’s my council tax bill.”