“The third figure, a tall, old man with a pointed, white goatee, stepped past Mr. Saffron and walked casually down the corridor, scanning the doors.”

“Mr. Grey trailed behind Mr. Saffron, frowning massively and watching the mysterious doors. There were hundreds--maybe thousands--of them along the endless corridor. None had names or markings of any kind. In the lead, Mr. Pink could be heard counting softly under his breath.”

“Mr. Grey peeked around the corner and surveyed the corridor. It stretched off into dim infinity, dotted with floating globes of silvery light. Mr. Grey had been told that the globes were swampfire, encased in a timeloop charm so they were inextinguishable. He’d never even heard of swampfire, much less a timeloop charm, but then again, Mr. Grey had never been in a place quite like the Hall of Mysteries. He shuddered.”

“corridor”

“I hate that name,” Mr. Grey said, walking toward the dragon’s head statue. It was taller than he was, formed eerily from the stalactites and stalagmites of the cavern wall. “I wanted to be Mr. Purple. I like purple.”

“Very quietly, James slipped out of bed and shrugged into his bathrobe. The stone floor was cool under his feet as he stood and listened, tilting his head. He turned slowly, and as he looked toward the door, the figure there moved. He hadn’t seen it appear, it was simply there, floating, where a moment before there had been darkness. James startled and backed into his bed, almost falling backwards onto it. Then he recognized the ghostly shape. It was the same wispy, white figure he’d seen chase the interloper off the school grounds, the ghostly shape that had come to look like a young man as it came back to the castle. In the darkness of the doorway, the figure seemed much brighter than it had appeared in the morning sunlight. It was wispy and shifting, with only the barest suggestion of its human shape. It spoke again without moving.”

“I know you said your dad and his mates used to do this all the time, but one of them was a girl, remember?' 'Yeah, and she didn’t eat seven meals a day, either,' Zane said. The three of them shuffled down the darkened corridor, crammed under the Invisibility Cloak.”