‘I have to be careful how much I use the Keys,’ he said slowly. ‘I already used this one quite a lot back in the Border Sea, and I don’t want to turn into a Denizen. Then I could never go back home.’
‘How close are you?’ Leaf asked curiously. ‘Like, do you get to use the Key a hundred times or something and then wham, you’re suddenly seven feet tall and a lot better looking?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Arthur. ‘That’s part of the problem.’
Dr Scamandros gave a slight and rather fake-sounding cough and raised his hand. Dame Primus stopped tapping her agenda for a moment and stared at him, then continued with her rearranging.
‘You may care to know, Lord Arthur,’ said Dr Scamandros, ‘that there is a little student project of mine that could be of use to you. It measures the sorcerous contamination of things, including, of course, persons.’
Scamandros started rummaging around inside his yellow greatcoat and pulled out a peacock-feather fan, several enamelled snuff boxes, a scrimshaw letter opener, and a brass piccolo, all of which he laid distractedly on the table.
‘Here somewhere,’ he said, and then triumphantly pulled out a two-inch-square velvet box that was very worn around the edges. Opening it, he passed it to Sunscorch, who passed it to Leaf, who looked curiously at the item inside before she gave it to Arthur. It was a slim silver crocodile coiled into a ring, its tail in its jaws. It had bright-pink diamonds for eyes, and its body was scored with lines that divided it into ten sections, each marked with a tiny engraved Roman numeral.
‘Is this relevant?’ asked Dame Primus impatiently. ‘I am ready to proceed with the reordered Agenda.’
Arthur ignored her and took the ring out of the box.
‘What does this do?’ he asked. ‘Do I put it on?’
‘Yes, do put it on,’ replied Dr Scamandros. ‘In essence, it will tell you the degree to which you have been … ah … tainted with sorcery. It is not exact, of course, and in the case of a mortal, the calibration is uncertain. I would say that if the ring turns more than six parts gold then you will have become irretrievably transformed into a –’
‘Can we move on?’ snapped Dame Primus as Dr Scamandros said, ‘Denizen.’
Arthur put on the ring and watched with fascination and growing horror as each silver segment of the crocodile slowly turned from silver to gold.
One … two … three –
If he was transformed into a Denizen, he could never go back home. But he needed to use the Keys and the Atlas against the Morrow Days, and that meant more sor-cerous contamination.
Unless it was all too late already.
Arthur stared at the ring as the tide of gold continued on, flowing into the fourth segment without slowing at all.
Three
ARTHUR KEPT STARING at the ring with dread fascination. After the fourth segment the gold suddenly stopped spreading, and then it slowly ebbed back a little.
‘It’s almost up to the fourth line,’ Arthur reported.
‘It is not exact,’ said Dr Scamandros. ‘But that would concur with my previous examination. Your flesh, blood, and bone are some four-tenths contaminated with sorcery.’
‘And past six-tenths I become a Denizen?’
‘Irrevocably.’
‘Can I get rid of the contamination?’ Arthur tried to keep his voice calm. ‘Does it wear off?’
‘It will reduce with time,’ Scamandros replied. ‘Provided you don’t add to it. I would expect that degree of contamination to lessen in about a century.’
‘A century! It might as well be permanent. But how much would using the Atlas add to the contamination?’
‘Without careful experimentation and observation I should not like to say. Considerably less than the interventions to heal your ailments, or to undo misdirected application of the Keys’ power. Anything not focused on your own body will be less harmful.’
‘It is not harmful to become a Denizen,’ said Dame Primus. ‘It is to become a higher order of being. I cannot understand your reluctance to shed your mortality, Arthur. After all, you are the Rightful Heir of the Architect of Everything. Now can we please return to the Agenda?’
‘I was only chosen because I was about to die and happened to be handy,’ said Arthur. ‘I bet you’ve got a stack of Rightful Heirs noted down somewhere if something happens to me.’
There was silence in the vast room for a few seconds, until Dame Primus cleared her throat.
Before she could speak, Arthur raised his voice. ‘We will go back to the Agenda! After we’ve worked out what to do about the Spirit-eater. I just wish I could remember what might have been taken.’