“Come Nambroth! Come Nambroth! Come Nambroth!”

A wind gripped the house by the eaves, and tried to pluck it from its sandstone roots, Something rushed by on booming winds. The lost voices of the air called to each other in the empty rooms, and the mist clung fast and did not stir.

“Coniuro et confirmo super vos potentes in nomi fortis, metuendissimi, infandi…”

Just at the moment when Susan thought she must faint, the stifling heat diminished enough to allow them to breathe in comfort: the wind died, and a heavy silence settled on the house.

After minutes of brooding quiet a door opened, and the voice of Selina Place came to the children from outside the cloakroom. She was very much out of breath.

“And… we say the stone… will… be safe. Nothing… can reach it… from… outside, Come away… this is a dangerous… brew. Should it boil over… and we near, that… would be the end… of us. Hurry. The force is growing… it is not safe to watch.”

Mistrustfully, and with many a backward glance, Grimnir joined her, and they went together through the doorway on the opposite side of the hall, and their footsteps died away.

“Well, how do we get out of this mess?” said Colin. “It looks as though we’re stuck here until she calls these animals off, and if she’s going to do any more of the stuff we’ve been listening to, I don’t think I want to wait that long.”

“Colin, we can’t go yet! My Tear’s in that room, and we’ll never have another chance!”

The air was much cooler now, and no sounds, strange or otherwise, could be heard. And Susan felt that insistent tugging at her inmost heart that had brushed aside all promises and prudence when she stared at the mist from the bridge by the station.

“But Sue, didn’t you hear old Place say that it wasn’t safe to be in there? And if she’s afraid to stay it must be dangerous.”