Chapter Two
Theodosius Penderglass returned from a reverie of indeterminable length to find himself standing alone in his shop. Hattie had gone, leaving her odd little trinket hanging still in the window.
He cast an eye once more over the array of colours patterning his floor, and being no more enlightened as to their import than before, he took down the glass and put it into his pocket. That he and Hattie had hit upon the beginnings of an explanation he did not doubt, but how to proceed any further with unravelling its meaning he could not immediately imagine.
His attention was distracted by the arrival of Malachi Amberdrake, who swept into his shop in a great hurry.
‘Theo!’ he said without preamble. ‘That John Quartermane! I could pummel him. He talks of reopening the Moss and Mist a
