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like him so much?"
    "Oh, Duck, if you really must know," said her mother, fighting to control her temper, "he interfered with some research your father and I were doing when we were students.   He acquired an important manuscript we needed to consult, but refused to let us see it."
    They were walking along a shady path near the back of the Fellows' Garden.   At the sound of her voice a few timorous birds flew out from the undergrowth, shrilling their displeasure.
    "It was an important document," she said more softly.   "It could have made our careers.   Yet still he kept it from us."
    "Why?"
    "Oh, I don't know!"   She scowled at a fir tree leaning over the other plants.   "Power, perhaps.   Or greed.   Sir Giles learned long ago that it was possible to make more money by purchasing rare books for his own collection than by sharing them with others."
    Juliet Winters motioned them towards an old wooden door set into a mossy wall.   Savage spikes jutted above it in an iron crown.   She reached into her pocket and withdrew a set of keys.
    "Sir Giles' decision set me back — who knows how long — years, probably," she said irritably.   "It was all I could do to scrape my way back, but your father... well, he just gave up."
    Blake was stunned.   He was having a hard time imagining his parents agreeing on anything, let alone a research project, but now he wanted to know what they had hoped to accomplish.   It sounded important.
    His mother stabbed a key in the lock and twisted it.   "I'd still like to get my hands on the manuscript," she said, forcing the door open with her shoulder.
    They passed through onto a wide boulevard lined with trees that were gradually losing their leaves.   Some had knobbly trunks with bumps and warts of wood; others jigsaws of gray and green bark.   An old black-framed bicycle had been propped against a nearby post and Duck raced towards it.   She couldn't resist ringing its bell.   It let out a dry, rusty croak.
    "What book was it?" asked Blake tactfully.   "The book you wanted, I mean."
    "It wasn't a book," said his mother, ushering them towards the end of the road, where Blake could see the dark silver dome and spires of the city center.   "It was a manuscript belonging to a monk who lived in Oxford during the Middle Ages."
    Blake stopped.   "A monk?" he asked, remembering the mysterious book he had found in the library.   It had looked hundreds of years old too.   Perhaps the two were related?
    A tremor of excitement crept through him.
    "What was his name?"
    "Ignatius," she said, much to his disappointment.   His face fell.   She regarded him curiously for a moment.   "Why the sudden interest?"
    Blake pretended to study a leaf floating belly up in a puddle.   He could still feel the weight of the blank book in his hands; the memory haunted him.   "No reason," he said, unwilling to divulge his discovery to anyone just yet.
    His mother shrugged.   "Well, it's a fascinating story.   Ignatius claimed to have seen the Devil entering the city with a book of forbidden knowledge on his back.   No one believed him, of course, and no one ever found the book.   It's a piece of apocrypha really.   But I was interested in it because of my research on Faust."
    "Who?" said Blake, looking up.
    "Faust," said Duck, showing off.   "He sold his soul to the Devil."
    "Did not," muttered Blake, and swung his knapsack in her direction.   She ran off, squealing.
    His mother gave him a warning glance.   "Duck's right.   According to some, Faust was a German necromancer who craved all the knowledge and power in the world, made a pact with the Devil and was dragged down to everlasting hellfire by a legion of devils."
    Blake's eyes lit up.   He didn't know what a necromancer was, but he could imagine a sorcerer dabbling with black magic and being consumed by a ring of fire.
    "And Dad?" he asked.   "What did he think of the manuscript?"
    "Your father had a much more speculative theory,"