Neverwhere

In this two-page chapter, Serpentine comes to collect Hunter’s body and the spear that killed the Beast of London.

Richard wakes to find himself in the Black Friars’ abbey. The Abbot takes him to Door, and another friar wheels the Marquis over in a wheelchair. The Abbot says they need to talk, wanting to know what happened to Islington. Door reveals that she sent the angel “halfway across both space and time” (347), which the Abbot is thankful for. Richard asks if, now that their journey is over, he can be sent home, but Door and the Marquis tell him once more that it isn’t possible.

The Abbot asks for the key, and Door reveals that she slipped it into Richard’s pocket―it was the mysterious object he felt when he tries to use his apartment key as a decoy. The Abbot tells them that Richard is now the key’s master and that he can use it to return to his life in London Above because the key isn’t the key to Heaven―it’s the key to the entirety of reality.

One of the friars leads Richard up a long ladder to the Nightingale Lane tube station and tells him to wait for someone to arrive.