Twelve-year-old Carmen has a secret: she can talk to her cat Grim. But the powerful Brotherhood has banned pets, and the penalty is death.
Ward is the most wanted boy in the world. The only thing standing between him and the hangman's noose is maste...
"Better fill you in then," Mildew said, glancing at Wrinkler and Lightfinger. Wrinkler shrugged and returned to the sofa, upon which he lay full length and out of sight.
Mildew took a deep breath. "See, what you got on your foot – well what we think you got – I mean, nobody's ever seen it with his own lamps – is the Star of Al-Kahf."
"Ahuh," Ward said slowly.
"You're gonna have to tell him what that means," said Wrinkler from the sofa. "He's a bit thick."
"So it goes like this," Mildew said. "In the last chapter in the Great Book – it's called the Dipstick -"
"Diphthera," said the sofa.
Mildew directed a rude gesture at the sofa before continuing. "Anyway, the Dip-thingy is all about the future and what happens in the Alpacalips. The Brotherhood used to make a big deal about it in the old days because everyone was way more supersuspicious back then. They call it a metagorical story. They love their big words them coves. But it predicts that someone's gonna be born a-zactly one thousand years after Hatto, and he'll have the Star of Al-Kahf on his foot. And this someone will – well they reckon that, I mean -" She looked uneasily at Lightfinger, whose face was pale, to Wrinkler, whose leering face had appeared over the back of the sofa. "Well that he'll wake The Sleepers. And they'll come up and destroy the world. And that's when we all get chucked down into Eden, and well -" She dusted off her hands.
"They think I'm going to end the world?" Ward said.
"Exactly," Wrinkler said, leaning over the back of the sofa and grinning. He was clearly enjoying himself. "You're a demon mate."
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