The Door in the Moon by Catherine Fisher Page A

followed, heart thudding with anticipation. If he could get his father back he’d steal anything from anyone. In fact, he’d often thought of being a master criminal. Wharton wouldn’t like it, of course. But he need never know.
    â€œHere we are, Jake. The inner sanctum.” She flung the door open and went in. He saw an empty room, containing only a chaise longue, with a ragged cloak on it, and opposite a dark rectangle of glass, reassembled in its silver frame.
    The mirror.
    He stood staring into it. “You took this from Symmes’s house.”
    â€œAfter I heard about the explosion. Silly old fool had thrown himself in.” She sounded peeved. “I would have shared the bracelet with him, eventually. He should have known that. I wonder where he went.”
    â€œHe went to the future. Janus found him.”
    Her eyes widened. “The future! Hell’s teeth, he must’ve loved that! How far?”
    â€œRight to the end.” Jake turned. “Right to the end of time, Moll. But by about 1910 the mirror is back in Alicia’s house, so . . .”
    â€œSo that means I’ll replace it. In my future.” She laughed. “Lord, Jake, all this living backward. It makes you giddy, don’t it.”
    â€œMoll. My father . . .”
    She sighed, picked up the ragged cloak and a red cap, made a small adjustment to the silver bracelet on her wrist. Then, with a speed so sudden he gasped, she grasped his hand and pulled him into the mirror.

    Rebecca stepped back from the sofa.
    Maskelyne lay still and unmoving, his breathing a faint lifting of his chest. His head was flung back, his hair dark on the pillow.
    â€œWe should get him to bed,” Venn said.
    â€œNo.” She was firm. “We don’t move him. He stays near the mirror.”
    â€œA doctor, then.”
    â€œWhat’s the use? He’s stable. He just won’t wake up. It’s not illness, it’s sorcery.”
    It was as if his soul had gone, she thought. Crashed so far down inside him, even she couldn’t make him know she was here. What had he done? Had she lost him for good now, this dark man with his strange secrets?
    Venn prowled the lab. Maybe he felt guilty, because he said, “I’m sorry this happened. We need him . . .”
    â€œThen do something! He stopped Janus for you—he can’t do any more. It’s up to you to find Jake and Sarah.” She glared around at them, at Gideon moodily tangling the malachite fibers, at Piers sitting staring at his boots.
    The small man looked up, flicked a glance at Venn. “She’s right, Excellency.”
    Venn turned, quickly. “Piers, play me back what happened when Maskelyne spoke to David, the last time, in Florence. He said something to him . . . Something about the amber stone.”
    Rebecca expected the little man to hunt out a recording but instead Piers put both hands together, stared straight ahead, thought for a second, and then opened his mouth. The voice that came out was not his own, but Maskelyne’s; not a copy, but a recording so accurate it made her shiver.
    â€œFirst, listen to me now. We found Dee’s manuscript. What it says is important. He says
Time is defeated only by love
. You must remember that! And the snake’s eye on the bracelet. It opens. Use what you find inside.”
    Venn nodded. He slipped off the bracelet and stared at it. Without looking at Rebecca, he said, “Did you know he’d had dealings with Janus?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAnd you didn’t tell us.”
    â€œI trust him. And I don’t know what went on. I don’t know anything.” She stared down at the sleeping man, while Piers brought a blanket and tucked it around him. “I just think that he comes from somewhere so far back in the past it’s almost legendary. He’s traveled all over time. And when he threw himself into the mirror