Ward turned the wheel and pushed the door open. He felt a rush of dank air from the space beyond, but had no time to see what lay there before Leah rushed past him like a fire up an elevator shaft, throwing him to the floor and sending the door crashing into the wall. He looked up in time to see her cross the threshold. To see her change.

When he had released the two bands that secured her ankles to the chair legs, she had stood up automatically. She hadn't stretched, or moved about to get the blood circulating through her arms and legs. She seemed to suffer no aches and pains. One of the perks of being a god, he'd thought, and had to stifle a bark of strange, hysterical laughter.

He gave her his long coat to cover herself with. He watched as she tugged the hem down over her thighs; a small, human act of modesty he found encouraging. The Corpusant likely gave no thought or care to its host's nakedness. It occurred to Ward that without Leah's help it mightn't have known how to put the coat on at all.

But giving her the coat had been pointless: Ward saw it burst into flame as she rushed out of the room, the woman inside it dissipating into the air like smoke. Now the space beyond the doorway was filled with a hellish red light. Ward heard snokeys squeal and burst into flame with hideous popping sounds. He could see the Corpusant hovering there in the centre of the room, shimmering in the air like heat haze; he thought he saw the outline of a woman in the haze, but then it was gone again. He wondered what it would do now it was free from the lead-lined room. Kill him, as likely as not.

Nevertheless he crawled through the doorway, his heart pounding in his ears.

Nothing happened.

He took one last look back through the doorway, at the chair and the lead-lined room, then pulled the door shut. Unlike the first door there was a wheel on both sides of this one. He turned it until it stopped. Then he stood up and looked around.

The room was walled on three sides. The fourth was either the top of a stairwell or a shaft – Ward couldn't tell. Beyond the dropoff the ancient brickwork of the ceiling curved away downwards and out of sight. An ancient, dusty lanthorn hung on a wall, next to a hook from which another lanthorn must once have hung. He wondered what had happened to it. He took the lanthorn down and blew the dust off it.

The call of the dice was stronger than ever now. It came from somewhere as far below him as it was ahead. Once he had the dice his path would be clear. This had been his mantra for months now, and he had come to believe it as firmly as he believed anything.

(What hast thou in thy hand?)

"A lanthorn," he said. "To see."

(Thou cannot see?)

"Once I help you back to your – place, I'll still need to find my way out. Why did you burn the snokeys? They didn't do you any harm."

('Tis my nature.)

"What about this lanthorn? Why doesn't it burn?"

(It would if I fix'd my gaze upon it.)

"And me?" Ward said.

(Thou art a mystery to me.)

Could the Corpusant see him at all? Or was he more like the lanthorn? He was not game to ask, nor did he really want to know. If it was going to kill him there was nothing he could do about it.

The dice. Concentrate on them.

He went to the edge of the landing and looked down.

To find the author of this book doing yoga in his underpants.

Warned you this would be scary.