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justice demands that the boy be brought before us.”
    “You appeal to justice, Contessa, but are you certain that the boy does not appeal to another part of you?” This new speaker stood up. He was a long-haired man dressed in a uniform of somber but rich red. As he spoke, he swept his hair back over his shoulder. A silence fell over the hall. Contessa did not reply, but Owen could feel a chill stealing through the air.
    “That settles it,” the woman they called Pieta said. “Bring the damn boy and bring him now. If our resident peacock starts scheming about the thing, we’ll never hear the end of it.” The man in the colored uniform glared at Pieta and made to speak again, but Chancellor held up his hand.
    “Sub-Commandant.” His tone was stern.
    “I sent Cati to get him,” the Sub-Commandant said. “In case he was required,” he added smoothly. Chancellor turned his gaze to the Sub-Commandant. Owen shivered. He could only imagine the scrutiny of those piercing eyes.
    “While we are waiting,” Contessa said, “we shoulddiscuss those who will not wake. The numbers have risen. We’re desperately weak, Chancellor.” Owen realized that she must have interrupted in order to break Chancellor's searching gaze at the Sub-Commandant. He felt Cati's elbow dig him in the side.
    “Come on,” she hissed. “Quick!”
    Owen and Cati crawled back through the gap in the stone wall. They ran as fast as they could down the staircases, Owen's clothes covered in cobwebs and his hands and elbows grazed from the rough stone walls as he tried to keep his balance. Disheveled and filthy, they practically fell out of the stairway into a brightly lit hall. A young man in the same richly colored uniform as the longhaired man grabbed Owen under the arm and lifted him to his feet. His face seemed friendly but serious.
    “Hurry,” he hissed. “You do not keep the Convoke waiting.”
    The wooden door in front of them swung open and Owen was propelled into the hall.
    Owen stopped dead. Every eye in the hall was fixed on him. He could see Chancellor standing on the dais. The young man gestured to him impatiently. Somehow, Owen managed to put one foot in front of the other, the crowd parting for him as he did so. He felt his heart beat faster and faster, and as he approached the dais, his foot caught the hem of a woman's cloak. He would have fallen had not a hand reached out and grabbed his elbow. Owen turned and found himself looking into the eyes of a tall older man with a beard and a terrible scar thatlooked like a burn on one side of his face. The man grinned and winked at him, managing to look both villainous and friendly at the same time. The sight gave Owen heart. At least he wasn’t without friends in the hall. He pulled himself upright and strode to the dais, where the Sub-Commandant addressed him.
    “You are welcome to the Convoke, young Owen. Have you anything to ask us?” But before Owen could open his mouth the man with the long hair broke in.
    “He’ll have time enough for questions. For the moment I want to ask him a few things about himself and how he got here.”
    For the next ten minutes Owen answered questions about where he came from, his school, his friends, his age, and how well he knew the area around the Workhouse. Such was the piercing quality of the man's eyes and his air of command that it was impossible not to reply.
    Chancellor was particularly interested in Johnston's scrapyard. Contessa asked him about his home and about his mother, and listened sympathetically as he tried to make things with his mother sound better than they actually were, while feeling that he was letting her down with every word.
    “Do you have any great fears, things that terrify you for no apparent reason?” Chancellor asked. His voice was casual, but Owen could feel that the whole Convoke was intent upon the answer. In his mind the image of a deep, still pool of black water formed, and he saw himselfbending over it and