Free Endymion Spring by Matthew Skelton

(1503-89).   His jeweled finger was tightly clasped round the spine of a worn leather volume.
    "OK, out you come," coaxed Blake, reaching down to pick up the cat.   His shoulder brushed a bookcase, almost causing a book to fall.
    At first, Mephistopheles refused to budge; then, deceived by Blake's false flattery, the cat relented and Blake seized him by the scruff of the neck.   The cat yowled.
    Struggling to maintain a hold on both his torch and the wriggling, squirming cat, Blake moved towards the stairs.   "Stop complaining," he told the cat.   "There's nothing to be—"
    Without warning, Mephistopheles raked his claws into Blake's shoulder and leaped free, arching high into the air.   Trying not to cry out in pain, Blake watched helplessly as the cat landed lithely on its feet by the glass cabinet and tore down the remaining steps... and out through the open door.
    Blake's heart froze inside him.   He could feel the night air sweeping into the library, wrapping itself round his legs, chilling him.   The door was wide open.
    "Who's there?" he called out anxiously, poking the torchlight into the gloom.   Long stretches of darkness led away from him.
    "Who's there?" he tried again, glimpsing a pale glimmer at the end of the corridor.
    He moved towards it and nearly dropped his torch.   For there, at the far end of the corridor, exactly where he had been standing before, a few volumes lay scattered on the floor.   But they hadn't just slipped off the shelves:   they'd been torn off, ransacked in a sudden fury.   Scraps of paper littered the carpet like parts of a dismembered bird and at least one spine was dangling from its cover like a severed limb.
    Blake gasped.
    For a moment he stood rooted to the spot, unsure what to do, feeling the library swim around him; then, overpowered by a desire to escape, he lunged towards the door.
    He scrambled down the steps and raced across the lawn, nearly tripping over himself in his haste to get away.   So he had not been alone!   Someone had followed him to the library!   Those thoughts pursued him as he sprinted wildly across the college, through the cloisters and up the path towards the Master's Lodgings.   Could someone else know about Endymion Spring ?
    A glimmer of light, like a knife blade, shone through a crack in one of the curtained windows, but by the time Blake stumbled up the stone steps, the partition had closed.
     
    A
     
    A man with owl-like glasses was helping himself to a slab of crumbly cheese from a sideboard near the door and Blake ducked behind him to take cover.   He doubled over, panting with exhaustion.
    He checked his watch.   Barely thirty minutes had gone by.   It was nothing... unless you happened to be waiting.
    One look was enough.   He was in trouble.   Serious trouble.
    His mother, standing next to a group of quarreling scholars, was barely listening to the discussion.   Arms folded across her chest, she was staring fixedly ahead, inwardly fuming.   Her body language said it all.
    He gulped.
    Duck was eagerly on the lookout and got up as soon as she had spotted him.   "Where have you been?" she snapped, pushing her way through the crowd.
    "Out," he said.   Then, failing to come up with a better excuse, he added, "It's really cold out there.   It might even snow."
    He started rubbing his arms up and down, wondering if she would believe him.   She didn't.   He stopped his play-acting.
    "How angry is she?" he asked, motioning towards his mother.
    "Pretty angry," said Duck.   "She's stopped talking to the other professors."
    That was a bad sign.   It meant she was really angry — angry beyond words.   The worst kind of angry.
    "Where were you really?" asked Duck in a different voice, more curious.
    "I told you.   I went out for a walk."
    He watched as his mother went to fetch her coat.   She met his apologetic grin with a steely expression.   The smile died almost instantly on his face.
    "No, you didn't," said Duck.   "You