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against it?
    The Atlas slowly wrote a single, misshapen letter. Arthur couldn’t quite figure it out for a moment, till he turned his head slightly and saw it was a Y that was partly rotated, followed very slowly by two more letters.
    “Yes,” read Arthur aloud.
    But the Atlas kept writing. Another word appeared, each letter painstakingly spelled out over several seconds.
    “And,” read Arthur, and then, “no.”
    “Yes and no? How can it be yes and no?” Arthur asked angrily. He felt rage build up inside him. How dare this ineffectual Atlas be so slow and so inexact!
    “I must have the answer!” shouted Arthur.He thumped the table with the Keys and thought furiously at the Atlas. What do you mean, “yes and no”?
    But the Atlas wrote no more and Arthur felt the power that opposed him grow stronger. It kept pushing at his face and he found himself turning his head, unable to keep looking at the Atlas, no matter how hard he tried. Then, with a crack, his head snapped round past his left shoulder, and with a snap that was almost as loud, the Atlas shut itself and returned to its normal size.
    Arthur growled. His vision was washed with red, a red that pulsed with his rapidly beating heart. He lost conscious thought. In one second he was sitting at the table, the rage building inside him. In what felt like the next second he found himself standing above the wreckage of the table, his hands balled into fists, with splinters of wood sticking out from his knuckles.
    The Atlas, undamaged, lay on top of the broken pile of wood.
    Arthur stared at it and the splintered timber. He was shocked by what he had done, for the table had been old and immensely solid, and could not havebeen smashed by even the strongest of men without a sledgehammer. He was even more shocked by the fact that he had done it involuntarily, that the rage had been so strong he had lashed out without his conscious mind even being aware of it.
    The anger was still there, smouldering away like a fire that needed only the merest breath to make it blaze again. It scared him, because it came out of nowhere and was so powerful. He had never been like this before. He was not an angry person. Or at least, he had not been before he became the Rightful Heir. Once again, as he had thought so often, he wished he had not been chosen by the Will to be the Heir, even though it had told him he would otherwise have died from an asthma attack. That was the only reason he’d been chosen, or so the Will had said. It had wanted a mortal, and one who was about to die.
    Arthur shivered and forced himself to take a long, slow breath. He counted to six as he breathed in, and to six as he exhaled. As he did so, he felt the rage diminish. He tried to visualise it being forced back into a small, locked box from which it could not emerge without him consciously releasing it.
    After a few minutes, he felt slightly calmer again and was able to think about what was going on.
    OK, I’m in some part of the Incomparable Gardens. I need to get out, get back to the Great Maze, and rally the Army of the Architect to invade the Upper House.
    Arthur stopped in mid-thought. That was what Part Six of the Will had suggested, but perhaps that wasn’t the best course of action. Dame Primus and Sir Thursday’s Marshals could get the Army organised without him, and whatever might be the outcome of any battle, he would still need to find Part Seven of the Will and release it. Then, with its help, he could force Sunday to give up the Seventh Key. With that in his possession, it wouldn’t matter if Saturday or the Piper conquered the Incomparable Gardens. With all Seven Keys, Arthur could defeat any opposition. And, more important, he could stop the tide of Nothing that was destroying the House.
    All I have to do is find the Will, thought Arthur with sudden clarity. I’ve done it before. I can do it here. I’m attuned to the Will. I am in the Incomparable Gardens and it is supposed to be here