Nick leaned back in his chair, propped his boots on the desk, and interlocked his fingers across his middle.
"I know you said to tell nobody else," Ward said, "but she -"
"- caught you," Carmen finished.
Nick smiled. "If I can't trust Franklin Blanket's niece, who can I trust?"
"You have to promise to give it back," Carmen said.
"Don't you trust me?" Nick said.
"The most wanted criminal in Bareheep? Why wouldn't I?"
Nick laughed out loud. It was such a natural, easy laugh that Ward smiled despite himself.
"Okay," Nick said. He looked up at the ceiling and recited: "I-promise-I-will-return-it-to-you-after-I've-inspected-it. There."
Carmen took the flute from her satchel and laid it on the desk.
Nick frowned at it. Ward knew what he was thinking. How could this be the Oliphant? "Snapper said there're lots of fakes," he said. It felt like an apology for the flute.
Nick nodded, without taking his eyes from the flute. He picked it up and examined it from end to end. Finally, he squinted down inside the open end, turning it this way and that in the lamplight. Then he put it back down on the desk. Still he said nothing. He turned to the shelf behind his desk and ran his fingers along the spines of the books there, pulling down a dumpy volume with a gold clasp around it. He opened the book and thumbed through it. Ward recognised it as a Biblia Magna, though it was twice the thickness of Jaggles's copy.
"Metaphorical Canon," Nick muttered as he turned the pages. "Chapter Thirteen – Diphthera." He was near the back. He scanned quickly through a few pages. "Ah," he said, and laid the book out flat on the desk so they could all see it. He had to pin it down so it wouldn't close up like a clam. Grim, who had leaped up onto the desk while they were talking, now sat sphinx-like upon Nick's papers, gazing down upon the book, as if he could read it.
Ward had never seen inside a Great Book, let alone the forbidden Metaphorical Canon. Each page was split into two columns of minute, dense text, and each block of text was numbered.
"Listen," Nick said, and began to read. "Then will come the Day of Judgement, when the faces of the Just shall shine with happiness and the faces of the Sinful darken with grief. And he who bears the Star shall sound the Oliphant and awaken the Sleepers from the depths of Eden."
Ward realised everyone was looking at him. His stomach lurched. "I wouldn't know how," he said. "Anyway, Snapper reckons you can't play just anything on it. You need the instructions."
"Which is your next task," Nick said. "I want you to find those instructions." He turned to Carmen. Do you mind if I hang onto it for a while? I want to take a closer look."
"You promised to give it back to me."
"All I'm asking for is a little more time."
"No."
"Ward?" Nick said.
"Um," Ward said, hoping that would be sufficient, but Nick and Mildew were still watching him expectantly. He coughed. "Well see, it's not Carmen's to give. It's someone else's. And he didn't want to bring it here at all."
"I see," Nick said evenly. Then his demeanour brightened. "Well one can only ask. Here you go Carmen." He handed the flute back. She put it in her satchel and snapped it closed. If Nick was disappointed he didn't betray it.
It seemed to signal the end of their meeting. Nick stood up and saw them out of his office. "Mildew," he said at the door. "May I have a quick word?"
"Bye," Mildew said to the others.
A moment later Ward, Carmen, and Grim were alone in the tunnel outside.
"Do you think we did the right thing?" Carmen whispered.
Ward thought about it. "Yeh," he said. "Look, let's take it back to Slops right now."
Carmen smiled.
They were about to move off down the tunnel when Mildew emerged from Nick's office.
"That was quick," Ward said. "What did he want to talk about?"
"I a-spect if he wanted you to know he woulda tole you his self," she snapped, and stamped away down the tunnel.
There once was a man from Nebraska,
Who forgot to vote on a chapter,
He died a horrible, horrible death.