Something powerful is drawing Ward back to Devil's Island. Something he thought he had forgotten. He must evade vicious lighthouse keeper George Jaggles in order to rescue it, but Jaggles will soon be the least of his worries. Because an assassin is...
Ward woke to complete darkness. The ground was hard and cold. Familiar odours: dust, dead mice, rimy salt, rotted furs, rotted ropes, damp. It took him a moment to remember where he was. His hands were like claws. He could barely close them. Why were they so sore? Oh, that's right, because he had rowed to the island. Then Jaggles had trapped him in the storehouse cellar. Trapped him like a vulpin.
He sat up. How long had passed since he'd fallen asleep? There was no way of knowing. Nick would come looking for him after the crew noticed the boat was gone from the ship. It was only a matter of time.
He went to a shelf and felt around in the darkness for a candle. He lit it and the shadows jumped away as if stung. He went up to the trapdoor and checked it. Still locked. Then he went back down the stairs and sat on a pile of old blankets and tried to remember what had happened before he'd fallen asleep. He remembered retrieving his bag from the hole under the wardrobe – the way his heart had pounded as he'd opened it and fished out his books, one by one – then an oddly disappointed feeling when he held them all in his lap. For it had not been the books calling him at all.
He didn't remember anything beyond that. He must have fallen asleep. It had been late after all, and he had been weary.
Then, the dream.
Ward rarely remembered his dreams. This one had been different. He remembered everything about it: the boy, the dying man, the guards whom the boy had called Please Men. Oddly, the dying man had been George Jaggles. Ward knew better than to hope that Jaggles was dead though. This was just how dreams worked. They didn't have to make sense.
The dice had been in the dream too. He wondered why he should dream about them now, for he had forgotten about them long ago. He looked at the small front pocket of the bag. Were they still there? He didn't reach immediately for the pocket. He wasn't sure he wanted to see them again.
The decision was taken out of his hands when the trapdoor crashed open.
"A bloody outrage. Nothing just disappears."
Jaggles's boots appeared on the top step, then stopped. He had seen the candlelight.
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