It starts with a whisper, as it always does, magic slip-skipping down her spine and bringing her to life once more.

“Does it hurt?” young Pya asked once, when she first accompanied her father to the sepulchre. “Being brought back?” 

The Oracle had been puzzled, and delighted. None of the previous scions had permitted their children to attend the Manteia. She had not seen a child in four hundred years.​

The departing locomotive’s whistle echoes across King’s Cross station. Stragglers hurry through the steam creeping across the platform and board the train: businessmen in fedoras, trench coats and briefcases; young women with pleated skirts and pin curls striking out on new careers; soldiers on their way to the countryside for family reunions and the chance to build a life that was crudely interrupted by the war.

Jack moves at a more deliberate pace. At precisely seven o’clock each morning, he makes his way to the bench in the corner of the platform. The flat cap rests