As Arthur ran down the stairs, he heard the music stop from the studio and then the front door slam. Bob must have seen the Grotesques as well. Arthur tried to shout a warning but didn’t have enough breath for more than a wheezy whisper.
“No, Dad! Don’t go outside!”
Arthur jumped the last five steps and almost fell. Recovering his balance, he raced across and flung the door open, just in time to see his father striding across the front lawn towards the two Grotesques. He looked angrier than Arthur had ever seen him.
“What do you think you’re doing?” shouted Bob.
“Dad! Get back!” cried Arthur, but his father didn’t hear him or was too angry to listen.
Tethera and Methera turned to face Bob. Their mouths opened wide, far too wide for mere speech.
“Hah!” breathed the Grotesques. Two dense streams of grey fog stormed out of their open mouths, forming a thick cloud that completely enveloped Bob. When it cleared a few seconds later, Arthur’s dad was still standing, but he wasn’t shouting any more. He scratched his head, then turned and wandered back past Arthur, his eyes dull and glazed.
“What did you do to him?” shouted Arthur. He wished he still had the First Key, in its sword form. He would stab both the Grotesques through without thinking about it. But he didn’t, and innate caution made him stay near the front door in case they breathed out the fog again.
Tethera and Methera gave him the slightest of bows, not much more than a one-inch inclination.
“Greetings, Arthur, Lord Monday, Master of the Lower House,” said Tethera. His voice was surprisingly melodious and smooth. “You need not fear for your father. That was merely the Grey Breath, the fog of forgetting, and will soon pass. We do not use the Dark Breath, the death fog… unless we must.”
“Unless we must,” repeated Methera softly.
They both smiled as they spoke, but Arthur recognised the threat.
“Go back to the House,” he said, trying to invest as much authority in his voice as he could. It was a bit difficult because he still couldn’t draw a full breath and wheezed on the last word. “The Original Law forbids you to be here. Go back!”
Some of the power of the First Key lingered in his voice. The two Grotesques stepped back and the calm on their faces was replaced with snarls as they fought against his words.
“Go back!” repeated Arthur, raising his hands.
The Grotesques retreated again, then rallied and stopped. Clearly Arthur did not have the authority or the remnant power to force them to go, though he had unsettled them. Both wiped their suddenly sweating foreheads with dirty white handkerchiefs plucked out of the air.
“We obey Grim Tuesday,” said Tethera. “Only the Grim. He has sent us here to claim what is his. But it need not go badly for you and yours, Arthur. Just sign this paper, and we will be gone.”
“Sign and we’ll be gone,” repeated Methera in his hoarse whisper.
Tethera reached into his jacket and pulled out a long, thin, gleaming white envelope. It drifted across to Arthur, as if carried by an invisible servant. The boy took it carefully. At the same time, Methera held out a quill pen and an ink bottle, and the Grotesques stepped forward.
Arthur stepped back, holding the envelope.
“I need to read this first.”
The Grotesques stepped forward again.
“You don’t need to bother,” wheedled Tethera. “It’s very straightforward. A simple deed handing over the Lower House and the First Key. If you sign it, Grim Tuesday will not pursue the debt against your folk. You will be able to live here, in this Secondary Realm, as happily as you did before.”
“As happily as you did before,” echoed Methera, with a knowing smirk.
“I still need to read it,” said Arthur. He stood his ground, though the Grotesques sidled up still closer. They had a very distinct smell, a lot like fresh rain on a hot, tarred road. Not exactly unpleasant, but sharp and a little metallic.
“Best to sign,” said Tethera, his voice suddenly full of menace, though he continued to smile.
“Sign,” hissed Methera.
“No!” shouted Arthur. He pushed Tethera with his right hand, the one that had most often held the First Key. As his palm touched the Grotesque’s chest it was outlined with electric blue light. Tethera stumbled back, grabbing at Methera to keep his balance. Both Grotesques staggered away, almost to the road. There they straightened up and tried to assume poses of dignity. Tethera reached into the front pocket of his apron and drew out a large, egg-shaped watch that chimed as he opened the lid and inspected the face.
“You may have till noon before we commence our full repossession,” Tethera shouted. “But we shall not cease our preparations, and delay will not be to your advantage!”
They got into their car, slammed the doors and drove off, without any engine noise whatsoever. Arthur watched as the car proceeded about twenty yards up the street, then suddenly vanished in a prismatic effect like the sudden, brief rainbow after a sun-shower.
Arthur glanced down at the gleaming white envelope. Despite its crisp look, it felt slightly slimy to his touch. How could he sign away the First Key and the Mastery of the Lower House? They had been so hard to win in the first place. But he also couldn’t let his family suffer…
His family. Arthur raced back in to check on Bob. There was no reason for Tethera to lie, but the Grotesques’ breath had looked extremely poisonous.
Bob was back in his studio. Arthur could hear him talking to someone, which was a good sign. The padded soundproof door was partly open, so Arthur poked his head around it. Bob was sitting at one of his pianos, holding the phone with one hand and agitatedly tapping a single bass note with the other. He looked fine, but as Arthur listened, he quickly realised that while the Grey Breath had worn off, the Grotesques had, as they’d threatened, continued their “preparations”.
“How can the band suddenly owe the record company twelve million dollars after twenty years?” Bob was asking the person on the phone. “They’ve always robbed us to start with. We’ve sold more than thirty million records, for heaven’s sake! It’s just not possible—”
Arthur ducked back out. The Grotesques had given him an hour and a half before full repossession – whatever that was. But even these beginning attacks were very bad news for the family. They’d be living on the street, forced to get handouts…
He had to stop them. If only he had more time to think…
More time to think.
That was the answer, Arthur thought. He could get more time by going into the House. He could spend a week there perhaps, and still come back to his own world only minutes after he left. He could ask the Will and Noon (who used to be Dusk) what to do. And Suzy…
His thoughts were interrupted as Michaeli came charging down the stairs, holding the printout of an e-mail, her face stuck in a frown that had to come from more than lack of sleep.
“Problem?” Arthur asked hesitantly.
“They’ve cancelled my course,” said Michaeli in a bewildered voice. “I just got an e-mail saying the whole faculty is being closed down and our building is being sold to pay the university’s debts! An e-mail! I thought it must be a hoax, but I called my professor and the front office and they both said it’s true! They could have written me a letter! Dad!”
She ran into the studio. Arthur looked down at the envelope in his hand, hesitated for a moment, then slit it open along the seam. There was no separate letter inside – the writing was on the inside of the envelope. Arthur folded