was leaning against one of the lavishly decorated walls. His gaze moved only briefly over me and then stopped at the biscuits on Mrs. Jenkins’s tray. With luck, his stomach was growling as loudly as mine.
Xemerius had slipped into the room ahead of me and was looking around appreciatively. “Wow,” he said. “This place is quite something!” He walked all around it once, admiring the elaborate carvings on the walls. I never tired of looking at them myself. I specially liked the mermaid swimming above the sofa. Every one of her scales was carved in detail, and her fins shimmered in all imaginable shades of blue and turquoise. But the hall owed its name to the gigantic dragon winding its way along the high ceiling between the chandeliers, looking as lifelike as if it might unfold its wings and fly away any moment.
At the sight of Xemerius, the little ghost boy widened his eyes in astonishment and hid behind Dr. White’s legs.
I would have liked to say, “He won’t hurt you. He only wants to play” (hoping that was true), but talking to a ghost about a demon when you’re in a room full of people who can’t see either of them is not to be recommended.
“I’ll just go and see whether I can find anything else to eat in the kitchen,” said Mrs. Jenkins.
“You ought to have gone home some time ago, Mrs. Jenkins,” said Falk de Villiers. “You’ve been doing too much overtime recently.”
“Yes, off you go home,” Dr. White snapped at her abruptly. “No one here’s going to starve to death.”
Oh, yes, they were! I was. And I felt sure that Gideon was thinking exactly the same. When our eyes met, he smiled.
“Biscuits are not what I’d call a healthy, well-balanced supper for children,” protested Mrs. Jenkins, but under her breath. Of course Gideon and I weren’t children anymore, but we could have done with a good meal all the same. A pity Mrs. Jenkins was the only one who shared my opinion, because unfortunately she didn’t have much say in the matter. At the door she almost collided with Mr. George, still out of breath and now also carrying two heavy leather-bound folio volumes.
“Ah, Mrs. Jenkins,” he said. “Thank you so much for the tea. Do lock up the office and go home now.”
Mrs. Jenkins made a disapproving face, but she only replied politely, “See you tomorrow morning.”
Mr. George closed the door behind her, with a loud snort, and put the thick books on the table. “Well, here I am. Now we can start. With only four members of the Inner Circle present, we don’t have the necessary quorum to make decisions, but we’ll be almost at full strength tomorrow. As we expected, Sinclair and Hawkins are not available, and they’ve both transferred their voting rights to me. Today we’re just concerned with establishing a rough plan of action.”
“We’d better sit down.” Falk pointed to the chairs standing around the table under the carved dragon, and we each took one of them.
Gideon hung his Edwardian coat over the back of his chair, opposite the place where I was sitting, and rolled up his shirtsleeves. “I’ll say it again: Gwyneth doesn’t have to be at this meeting. She’s tired and terrified. She should elapse, and then someone must take her home.”
And first someone should give her a pizza. With extra cheese.
“Don’t worry. Gwyneth will only be asked to give us a brief account of her impressions,” said Mr. George. “Then I’ll take her down to the chronograph myself.”
“I can’t say she appears to me particularly terrified,” muttered black-clad Dr. White. Robert, the little ghost boy, was standing behind the back of his chair and casting curious glances at the sofa, on which Xemerius was now lounging.
“What’s that thingy ?” Robert asked me.
Of course I didn’t answer.
“I am not a thingy. I’m a good friend of Gwyneth’s,” replied Xemerius for me, putting out his tongue. “You might even say her best friend. She’s going to buy me a