Neverwhere

While they travel to see the Black Friars, Hunter talks about beasts she has defeated and declares that she will kill the Great Beast of London or die trying. They walk into a thick, yellow fog, which Door explains is the echo of London fog―the result of severe air pollution from coal burning. Even though London Above hasn’t had it in about four decades, it still occurs in London Below. Door explains that there are time bubbles in London Below that hold onto things that happened in London Above years ago, like the fog.

At the abbey of the Black Friars, the Abbot awaits the trio’s arrival; he had dreamed they were on their way. They reach a bridge guarded by a Black Friar, who asks them to identify themselves. Richard states they want the key and tries to cross the bridge, but the friar knocks him back. Hunter engages the friar and the two fight. Hunter gets the friar to concede, and she, Door, and Richard are granted permission to cross the bridge. In the middle of the bridge, another friar presents them with a riddle, which Door solves. The Abbot comes forward and states that the third—meaning Richard—must now face the Ordeal of the Key. Hunter tries to take his place, but the Abbot refuses. Holding the three companions at crossbow, the friars force Richard to accompany the Abbot. Richard learns the ordeal is deadly―the friars keep a wall memorializing all who failed―but it is the only way to get the key Islington needs. As the unofficial first part of the Ordeal of the Key, the Abbot offers Richard a cup of tea, but Richard declines to drink it, preferring to get the ordeal over with. The Abbot leads Richard into a chamber and closes the door.

Door tells Hunter that if she’d known about the ordeal, she would have gone to find the Marquis first so that he could face it instead of Richard. Unbeknownst to her, the Marquis is being crucified by Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar.

Richard finds himself at Blackfriars Station and parks himself on a bench not long before a mother walks by with her daughter and says people like Richard are pathetic because they won’t just end their lives. He can’t remember why he’s at the station, and he feels deeply depressed. Richard’s friend Garry sits next to him, but when Richard tries to explain his appearance, Garry says that he’s not really there with Richard. Then, Garry turns into another Richard, who says that he’s all that’s left of the real Richard’s sanity and that the real Richard is sitting on a bench talking to himself in the middle of rush hour. He tells Richard to look closely at his surroundings because he’s “the closest [he’s] been in a week to reality” (253), and Richard suddenly becomes aware of dozens of people. He sees his reflection in a subway train; he looks like an erratic, unhoused version of himself. He covers his face, and when he looks up, he finds himself alone again until a woman’s hand clasps his. 

It’s Jessica—but she says she’s really him, Richard. His other self—the one that originally appeared as Gary—is still there. Richard asks if this is part of the ordeal, and they tell him that he had a mental health crisis and has been wandering London for a couple of weeks. He returns to the version of the station that is bustling with people; someone knocks into him, and he falls onto the platform. He is lying in vomit and whimpering. The rush-hour travelers disappear, and the apparition of Gary is there again. Gary tells him he’s trying to get up the pluck to jump onto the tracks and end his life; he then tosses him a troll doll, which Richard fails to catch.

The travelers return. Getting kicked and stepped on, Richard crawls toward the edge of the platform where the troll now sits. An elderly woman kicks it off the platform, and then all the commuters vanish again. Richard makes it to the edge of the platform and sees a message on the opposite wall telling him to kill himself. Just as he’s about to give in, he reaches into his pocket and finds Anaesthesia’s quartz bead that he kept. He hears her voice, telling him to hold on. When the oncoming train approaches, Richard doesn’t jump in front of it. The doors open, and he sees that the car is filled with corpses of those who have died by suicide. Richard boards the train and is engulfed in darkness. 

Back in the abbey, the door to the ordeal room opens. The Abbot assumes Richard is dead, but Richard stands and says he got through the ordeal and then asks for the cup of tea. The friars, shocked, give him the key. Richard rejoins Door and Hunter, and upon realizing that he has succeeded in getting the key, Door hugs him. Watching the trio leave, the Abbot says to himself, “We have lost the key […] God help us all” (262).

Islington dreams of the day when Atlantis sinks. After the angel wakes, it calls Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar, revealing it is their employer. Islington demands that they keep Door safe until she returns to Islington, but it says they’re free to kill the Marquis when Mr. Croup asks about it. Mr. Croup relays this to Mr. Vandemar after the call ends, and the latter suggests they get rid of the Marquis de Carabas’ body, as they had already killed him. Mr. Vandemar loads the body into a shopping cart, and as he rolls it along, Mr. Croup says they should be proudly displaying the remains of the Marquis, not just tossing him away. Regardless, they dump his body into the sewer.

Door, Hunter, and Richard leave the friars with the key. Hunter stops a young boy passing by and he tells them that the next floating market is that night, in Belfast. Soon after, a pale woman in black velvet emerges from the shadows to ask when the next market is; Richard recognizes her as someone he saw while wandering the market in Harrod’s. Door tells him that she’s a Velvet, a group of women who sleep all day and only emerge at night. As the trio make their way to the market, Richard wonders whether the Marquis will be there to meet them. 

As the Marquis floats along—ultimately headed toward the Thames Estuary—some rats see him and one of them jumps onto his body to investigate. Another rat, one with black fur, goes to the Golden—a group of rats with golden fur—and they talk. The black rat then visits Old Bailey, appearing to tell him that the Marquis’s body was found. Old Bailey grabs the box the Marquis gave him and asks the rat where the market will be that night. 

Back in the sewer, Dunnikin, the Chief of the Sewer Folk, spots a mobile phone and scoops it out of the water, adding it to a pile of refuse he hopes to sell at that night’s market. The Marquis’s body floats toward Dunnikin and his people, and they take his coat and all of the items in the pockets.