'Nonesuch, they called it,' said Apolline. 'Damn fool name.'

'At first there was an attempt to put all this property into some kind of order,' said Freddy. 'But that soon fell by the wayside, as refugees kept arriving with more to be woven into the carpet. More every day. There'd be people waiting outside

Capra's House for nights on end, with some little niche they wanted kept from the Scourge.'

That's why it took so long,' said Lilia.

'But nobody was turned away,' said Jerichau. 'That was understood from the beginning. Anyone who wanted a place in the Weave would be granted it.'

'Even us,' said Apolline, 'who weren't exactly lily-whites. We were granted our places.'

'But why a carpet?' said Suzanna.

'What's more easily overlooked than the thing you're standing on?' said Lilia. 'Besides, the craft was one we knew.'

'Everything has its pattern.' Freddy put in. 'If you find it, the great can be contained within the small.'

'Not everyone wanted to go into the Weave, of course.' said Lilia. 'Some decided to stay amongst the Cuckoos, and take their chance. But most went.'

'And what was it like?'

'Like sleep. Like dreamless sleep. We didn't age. We didn't hunger. We just waited until the Custodians judged that it was safe to wake us again.'

'What about the birds?' said Cal.

'Oh, there's no end of flora and fauna, woven in -'

'I don't mean in the Fugue itself. I mean my pigeons.'

'What have your pigeons got to do with this?' said Apolline.

Cal gave them a brief summary of how he'd first come to discover the carpet.

That's the Gyre's influence.' said Jerichau.

The Gyre?'

'When you had your glimpse of the Fugue.' said Apolline. 'You remember the clouds in its heart? That's the Gyre. It's where the Loom's housed.'

'How can a carpet contain the Loom it was woven on?' said Suzanna.

The Loom isn't a machine.' said Jerichau. 'It's a state of making. It drew the elements of the Fugue into a rapture which resembles a common-place carpet. But there's a good deal there that denies your human assumptions, and the closer you get to the Gyre, the stranger things become. There are places there in which ghosts of the future and past are at play -'

'We shouldn't talk about it,' said Lilia. 'It's bad luck.'

'How much worse can our luck become?' Freddy observed. 'So few of us ...'

'We'll wake the Families, as soon as we recover the carpet,' said Jerichau. 'The Gyre must be getting restless, or else how did this man get a look? The Weave can't hold forever -'

'He's right,' said Apolline. 'I suppose we're obliged to do something about it.'

'But it isn't safe,' said Suzanna.

'Safe for what?'

'Out here, I mean, in the world. In England.'

The Scourge must have given up -' said Freddy,'- after all these years.'

'So why didn't Mimi wake you?'

Freddy pulled a face. 'Maybe she forgot about us.'

'Forgot?1 said Cal. 'Impossible.'

'Easy to say,' Apolline replied. 'But you have to be strong to resist the Kingdom. Get in too deep and next thing you can't even remember your name.'

'I don't believe she forgot,' said Cal.

'Our first priority,' said Jerichau, ignoring Cal's protest, 'is to retrieve the carpet. Then we get out of this city, and find a place where Immacolata will never come looking.'

'What about us?' said Cal.

'What about you?'

'Don't we get to see?'

'See what?'

The Fugue, damn you!' Cal said, infuriated by the lack of anything approaching courtesy or gratitude from these people.

'It's not your concern now,' said Freddy.

'It damn well is!' he said. 'I saw it. Almost got killed for it.'

'Better you stay away then,' said Jerichau. 'If you're so concerned for your breath.'

That's not what I meant.'

'Cal,' said Suzanna, putting her hand on his arm.

Her attempt to calm him merely inflamed him further.

'Don't side with them,' he said.

'It's not a question of sides -' she began, but he wasn't about to be placated.

'It's easy for you,' he said. 'You've got connections -'

That's not fair -'