9

As soon as Tom was able to get out of bed, he went to the cabinet in the living room. The china figures stood in their old places, the girl with the crook, the boy, the Elizabethan, the revelers. The boy's face was undamaged: that horrific vision had been inspired by his fever, a hallucination forced on him by the same tension which had made him ill. Tom's legs felt like those of a baby, unused to carrying his weight. Muscles he had never noticed before grumped and ached.

At dinner that night the magician complimented him on his recovery. 'I feared we might lose you, my boy. What do you think it was? Touch of the flu?'

'Something like that,' Tom said. And shied from the magician's glowing eyes.

'Would have been a terrible irony if you died, don't you think?'

'I can't see it that objectively.'

Collins smiled and sipped at his wine. 'At any rate, you look splendid now. Don't you think he looks splendid, Del?'

Del mumbled assent.

'Simply splendid. Has a look of the young Houdini about him, wouldn't you agree? Bursting with strength and health and craft. Unassailable. Do you feel unassailable, Tom?'

'I feel pretty good,' Tom said, hating that Collins could make him feel like a fool.

'Superb. Wonderful.' The last of the wine went past his lips. 'Since you have been resurrected to us, tomorrow you shall have the penultimate episode of my life story. Do you feel up to it, little bird?'

'Sure,' Tom said.

'Tomorrow, then. Not at the regular time. Ten at night, I think. By the sixth light. I'll look for you there.'