Tria turned and looked at the adults.

“See?” she said, an expression of delight on her face, a rare sight indeed.

The top of the pod now flew open like the lid of a casket. And there, lying in a mess of mud and water, but cushioned by the leaves and the coiled tendrils that lined the pod, was John Mischief and his brothers.

Their eyes were still closed, but something—perhaps the light suddenly falling on their upturned faces when the lid rose—now stirred them.

John Moot was the first to open his eyes. He blinked hard. Then he frowned and let out a little laugh.

“What happened?” he said.

“You’re awake…”said Tom.

John Drowze piped up next. “So am I!”

It was like watching the stars come out at night, as now—one by one—the John brothers opened their eyes and the light of full consciousness returned into their puzzled faces.

Mischief himself, however, remained comatose, even though in a short time every other one of his brothers was awake.

“We should lift you out of here,” Tom said to them, “before the greenery thinks about swallowing you up again.”

“Don’t bother,” said Serpent. “We’ll wake him, and then he can climb out himself.”

“You might have difficulty,” said Geneva, peering closely at Mischief. “He’s showing no sign of stirring.”

“Don’t worry—” said John Sallow.

“—we do it all the time when he’s dozing,” John Slop said.

Then, looking at his brothers, “Is everybody ready?”

There were murmurs of affirmation from both antlers.

John Serpent took the countdown:

“Three. Two. One—”

And as a single voice, the Johns all yelled:

“MISCHIEF?”

At first there was no response, absolutely none. They held their breath; Fillet, Sallow, Moot, Drowze, Pluckitt, Serpent and Slop included. Then there was the tiniest of twitches in Mischief’s left eyelid and a moment later his eye opened. His right eye followed a heartbeat later.

“What am I doing lying in this plant?” was the first thing he said, and rolled out of it, onto the rain-sodden, root-covered ground. He winced as he fell.

“Damn fool, Mischief,” John Serpent said. “Will you be more careful? This body of ours is wounded, remember?”

“The dragon…”John Mischief said.

“You remember?” said Geneva. Mischief nodded. “Well, that’s good.”

“Of course we remember,” John Serpent said. “A thing like that you don’t forget.”

‘“I just don’t know how I got from there to here,” Mischief said.

“Well, that’s for us to tell and you to listen,” Geneva replied with a smile.

“Give me a hand up, somebody,” Mischief said, offering his arm to Tom.

“I’ve got you,” Tom said, hauling the brothers to their feet.

The greenery was still burgeoning on every side, so they all stumbled out of the grove together, picking pieces of tendril and shredded leaf out of their hair and from inside their clothes. The sun was bright and warm; there was not a cloud in the sky. Even the deepest of the puddles was rapidly soaking into the ground.

“Welcome to the Nonce,” said Tom to the Johns. “You were as close to death as anyone could get and still come back.”

“We’re not going anywhere,” John Mischief said, carefully stretching in the warmth. “We’ve got a lot of adventuring to do. Dragons to fight. Finnegan to find.”

“What is that music?” John Sallow said.

“It’s the snakes of the Nonce singing,” Tom replied.

A broad grin spread over John Mischief’s face. “See?” he said, making a tiny shake of his head. “That’s another thing we’ve got to do. We’ve got to listen to the snakes sing.”

Candy ran, and kept running, without daring to look back over her shoulder at the Fugit Brothers. She didn’t need to. They kept up an almost ceaseless exchange as they came after her. “She doesn’t know where she’s going, Brother Tempus.”

“Nor she does, Brother Julius, nor she does.”

“She could trip at any moment, Brother Tempus.”

“Flat on her face, Brother Julius, flat on her face.”

They were like a couple of bad comedians—all talk and no punch line. In fact, their chatter was so irritating she was half tempted to turn around and tell them to shut up. But then she thought of their vile unfixed features circling and circling and her appetite for confrontation faded. Better to just run. There had to be some way out of here. After all, she’d got in, hadn’t she?

But no matter which way she looked, there was no sign of an exit. Just the same featureless darkness in all directions. And she was getting tired. Her chest was tight, and her throat was raw. Sooner or later, she knew, she was going to stumble. When she did her talkative pursuers would be on her in a heartbeat.

“She’s slowing down, Brother Julius.”

“That I see, Brother Tempus. That I see.”

Just to prove the pair wrong, Candy put on an extra spurt of energy. As she did so she remembered the chaotic moments that had preceded her entrance into this dark place. How the glyph had turned over, flinging her out.

Ah, she thought, maybe that’s the answer to my problem.

Here she was looking for a door, assuming there was no way out except through a door. But she hadn’t come in that way, had she? Maybe her best escape route was to throw herself into the darkness, and trust to fate.

She glanced over her shoulder. The brothers were no more than a few strides behind her. If she was going to try and escape them, it was now or never.

She counted to three. “One—”

“What did she say, Brother Julius?”

“Two.”

“I didn’t catch it, Brother Tempus.”

“Three—”

And with that she pitched herself forward, almost as though she were diving into a pool of water. It worked. The moment her body was free of the ground, the darkness around her seemed to convulse. She was instantly released from its grip, and she felt herself tumbling over and over. A moment later, there was light! And she fell heavily among the rocks on the shore of the Twenty-Fifth.

She landed so hard that her breath was knocked from her. For a few moments she lay there gasping and bruised, listening to the sound of the waves and the din of the seabirds squabbling over some piece of fish that had been washed up.

Then, from nearby, there came a reassuring voice.

“Lady?”

Seconds later Malingo’s face came into view, upside down.

“You’re here! You’re alive!”

Candy was still in a mild state of shock. She opened her mouth to answer Malingo, but at first all that would come out was a trail of disconnected words. “Running. Clocks. Faces. Tempus Fugit. And Julius. Horrible. Two. Horrible.”

“Oh my poor lady,” Malingo said. “Did they make you crazy in there?”

“I’m not crazy!” Candy said, pushing herself up into a sitting position. She took a deep breath and tried to construct a more coherent sentence. “I’ve got a few bruises,” she said. “But I’m sane. I swear I am. And I’m alive.”

“Alive you are,” Malingo said, with a bright smile.

Candy laughed. She’d done it! She’d actually escaped the Twenty-Fifth Hour!

She got to her feet and embraced Malingo. “The things I’ve seen,” she said to him. “You wouldn’t believe some of the things…”

“Such as?” said Malingo, eyes gleaming with curiosity.

Candy opened her mouth, intending to describe her adventures inside the Twenty-Fifth. But then she decided against it.

“You know what?” she said. “Perhaps it’s best not to do it here.”

She stared at the wall of roiling mist that separated the beach from the secret world on the other side. Anybody could be on the other side, she reasoned. Listening; or worse, ready to pounce and drag her back in.

“We should get out of here first,” she said to Malingo, “before the Fugit Brothers catch up with us.”