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improper,” Dame Primus complained. “I must protest, Lord Arthur. How can we properly come to conclusions and act effectively if we don’t follow our agenda?”
    “Why don’t you put the Agenda in order of importance, and while you’re doing that, we’ll talk about the Spirit-eater,” said Arthur, not daring to look at Dame Primus as he spoke. There was something about her that made him want to quietly sit and do as he was told. She reminded him of the scariest teacher he’d ever had, who could stun aclassroom into silence just by appearing in the doorway. But like that teacher, Arthur found that if he didn’t meet her gaze, she was easier to confront. “Dr. Scamandros?”
    “Ah, well, I haven’t had much time to look into things,” said Scamandros with a jittery glance at Dame Primus. The tattoos of palm trees on his cheeks suddenly shook and half a dozen nervous monkeys fell out and slid down to his chin before the palm trees disappeared and were replaced by clock faces with swiftly moving hands. “I mean, I barely had time for a glass of revitalizing tonic at Port Wednesday before I was hustled here. But nevertheless, I do have some information, collected with the aid of Monday’s Noon, who while not trained in the Upper House is nevertheless a capable sorcerer…”
    He paused to bow to Monday’s Noon, who bowed back. Arthur gripped his orange juice and tried not to look too impatient. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Suzy slink back in and sit on the floor, hidden behind Monday’s Noon.
    “As far as we can ascertain,” Scamandros continued, “Spirit-eaters have only been raised on a handful of occasions in the whole history of the House. A Spirit-eater is a potent and unpleasant type of Nithling created to assume the identity of someone, either Denizen or mortal. Its chief power is to cloak itself in an exact likeness of its target,and it also has the ability to extrude its mentality into those around it, whether they be mortal or Denizen—”
    “What?” interrupted Arthur. “What does ‘extrude its mentality’ mean?”
    “I’m not too certain…Apparently once a Spirit-eater has done it, though, it is able to control its victims’ minds and read their recent thoughts and memories. It does this in order to further its deception. Initially it will have only the usual, exterior knowledge of its target, so it seeks to learn more from the target’s confidantes and fellows.”
    “You mean it’s going to mentally take over my family?” Arthur spilled his orange juice as he stood up in agitation. “How long will it take to do that?”
    “Yes, that is…I suppose that is what it will do,” said Scamandros. “Though I don’t know how.”
    “How much time would it need?” asked Arthur. This was the worst thing, his family being in danger. He remembered the two Grim’s Grotesques breathing their foul breath of forgetting over his father, how he had felt in that awful second as that fog had rolled over his dad. Now his whole family was threatened again, and he was stuck in the House. They would be defenseless.
    I have to help them, Arthur thought desperately. There has to be something…someone…
    “A few days, I think. But I cannot say for certain,” said Scamandros.
    Arthur looked at Leaf. She met his gaze.
    “I guess you’re thinking what I’m thinking,” she said. “You can’t go back or the whole world goes kapow . But I could go back and try and get rid of this Spirit-eater.”
    “I don’t know,” said Arthur. “It sounds very dangerous. Maybe Monday’s Noon could—”
    “No interference!” boomed Dame Primus. “Remember the Original Law! The mortal may return to whence she came, but no others may sully the Architect’s work.”
    “I think it’s more than a bit sullied already,” said Arthur crossly. “How come it’s all right for the bad guys to do whatever they want, and whenever I want to do something it’s ‘forget about it’? What’s the good of