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asked Grimm.
    â€œI’ve barely seen him,” said Ignatius. “Since he left Jonathan with us, he’s just kept to his cottage—he didn’t even come to the service this morning. I guess he’s trying not to fret about Darriel and Savantha and that he’s heard nothing from either of them for a week now.”
    â€œNothing at all?” asked Grimm.
    Ignatius shook his head. “They’ve just disappeared. I hope it’s because they’re hiding somewhere until they think it’s safe enough to come and get Jonathan. Or they may be trying to petition Lucifer for help. I guess Gabriel’s worried about what Belial will do if he captures one or both of them.”
    â€œDo you think they’d tell Belial where Jonathan is hidden?”
    â€œHe’s an archdemon, Grimm. I don’t want to think about what he’d do to get the information.”
    â€œWhat did you tell the rest of the villagers?”
    â€œThe same story we told Jonathan. That we found him in the graveyard and that we don’t know where he’s from.”
    â€œMore lies,” said Grimm, shaking his head.
    â€œI know,” said Ignatius. “But it’s necessary. At least I can trust everyone in the village not to mention Jonathan’s arrival to anyone outside Hobbes End. If there’s one thing we’re good at, it’s keeping secrets.”
    Â 
    â€œSo, let me get this straight,” said Jonathan. “Hobbes End is this ancient little village in the middle of a forest, and it has a
soul.
”
    Cay nodded. “Well, that’s how Gabriel describes it. It’s like it has a personality.”
    â€œAnd how did this happen?”
    â€œWell, when Gabriel got exiled from Heaven, this is where he landed, right in the middle of the pond. All the power from his wings soaked into the earth, and over the years Hobbes End developed a mind of its own.”
    â€œSo Gabriel is an angel? And he’s living here, in Hobbes End?”
    â€œWas,” said Cay. “He’s retired. He builds clocks now, and he’s very good at it too. He’s been here since . . . 1666, I think.”
    â€œRight,” said Jonathan.
    â€œOh,” said Cay, waving a finger for emphasis, “and the village calls out to people who need help, who need somewhere to be safe. That’s who all the villagers are. They’re people who have come here because they need to hide from something or someone. I think there are about eighty people here at the moment—well, eighty-one if we count you.” She grinned.
    Jonathan rubbed his face; the painkillers Grimm had given him were beginning to wear off, and he could feel the onset of another terrific headache.
    â€œWhat’s to stop anyone from just walking into Hobbes End to find them when they feel like it? What’s the village going to do about that?” he asked, his tone betraying that he didn’t believe a word Cay was saying.
    â€œOh, if the village didn’t want someone to wander in, it would just turn them round and send them back out. They’d never get anywhere near the place. Like I said, the village is very protective of the people who live in it. Anything evil that tried to get in would catch fire. Well, that’s the theory—never seen it happen myself. For example, when you tried to walk out the other night—”
    â€œI what?” said Jonathan. And then the memories began to flicker back—his bare feet on the gravel, the green, Grimm picking him up . . .
    â€œYou were delirious and had a fever,” said Cay. “You wandered out of the house in the middle of the night, and the village thought you were trying to leave. It knew you were hurt and that it wasn’t safe for you to be wandering around in the dark, so it turned you round and sent you straight back.”
    Jonathan shook his head. “Funny, that’s really funny,” he