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Most High Academe could be when kept waiting. He was just about to leave his room when Tweezel laid a pincer on his shoulder.
    ‘Just one thing, young apprentice,’ it said.
    ‘Yes?’ said Quint.
    ‘The Most High Academe hates to be kept waiting.’ With his poky little garret a narrow staircase up from the vast balcony-chamber, and the Most High Academe's study two storeys below that, Quint hurtled down the stairs in twos and threes. He didn't want to be even later than he already was.
    ‘Ah, there you are, lad,’ said Linius, looking over his shoulder as, hot and breathless, Quint knocked and poked his head round the open door of the professor's study. ‘Come in. Come in.’
    Quint entered the room. He was relieved to find that the Most High Academe, who was seated on a tall battered stool at a cluttered desk overflowing with charts and scrolls, seemed in a better mood than he'd anticipated – although he looked strained and tired. Quint hadn't yet discovered that Tweezel would always lie about the time, so that those hewas called to summon were always on time.
    ‘And close the door,’ Linius added. His voice dropped to an urgent whisper. ‘I don't want a single word of what I'm about to say to go beyond these four walls. Is that understood?’
    Quint nodded calmly as he pushed the door shut, but inside his heart was racing. What was the professor about to say?
    The professor swivelled round completely. ‘So, Quint,’ he said, ‘how are you finding Sanctaphrax?’
    ‘It … it …’ he said, at a loss to know where to start. Everything was so bewilderingly different from what he was used to on board the Galerider – from the unspoken, yet rigidly upheld, pecking-order of the steamy refectory to the intrigue, whispers and lies that took place on the Viaduct Steps. And then there was the Fountain House school: the archaic rules he inadvertently kept breaking in Wilken Wordspool's classroom – and the lessons themselves, so long, so repetitive, so tedious…
    Just then, the white ravens outside, who had been silent for a while, started up once again. His words were lost to their raucous clamour.
    ‘What was that?’ the professor shouted back, his hand cupped to his ear.
    ‘Noisy!’ Quint shouted back. ‘I find Sanctaphrax very noisy.’
    ‘I agree,’ Linius nodded earnestly. He stood up and, limping slightly, crossed to the windows and closed them all. ‘Shamefully noisy for a so-called place of learning, I would say.’ He turned and smiled. ‘How wouldyou like to go to the quietest corner in all of Sanctaphrax?’
    ‘I think I should like that very much,’ said Quint.
    ‘Very good,’ said Linius. He plucked at his fingers, making some of the joints crack. ‘It concerns one of those little tasks I mentioned the day your father dropped you off here. Do you remember?’

    ‘Yes,’ said Quint warily, remembering that the professor had also spoken about the Knights' Academy. He certainly hoped the task had nothing to do with that place. Then again, he thought, he had passed the academy several times and, what with all the para-jousting, pummelball, and one-to-one combat that was going on inside, it was probably the noisiest place in all Sanctaphrax.
    ‘The place I want you to visit,’ said Linius Pallitax, ‘is the Great Library.’
    Quint's brow furrowed. ‘The Great …’ He paused. ‘I don't think I know where that is.’
    ‘Very few academics do, I'm afraid. It was an ancient centre for earth-studies. These days it is most unfashionable. Nobody goes there any more,’ said the professor, and tutted unhappily. ‘Sky above, have we really come so far?’ he murmured. ‘Here I am, Most High Academe of a place where the very presence of the Great Library is ignored.’
    The High Academe's eyes had a faraway look in them. He seemed to be talking to himself. ‘Oh, it was a sad day indeed when the schism between earth-studies and sky-scholarship first occurred.’ He glanced round