Its abrupt end in a courtyard wasn’t. He must have missed Paternoster Row in the dark. He retraced his way back to the lane and up the way he’d come.

But it wasn’t the same lane. This one ended in a wooden stable. You’re lost, he thought furiously. You should have known better than to wander about in the dark in the City.

There was no worse place in London—or history—to be lost. The area surrounding St. Paul’s had been a rabbit warren of confusing lanes and mazelike passages, most of them leading nowhere. He could wander in here forever and never find his way out. And the rain was coming down harder than ever.

“I am positively too old for this,” he muttered, craning his neck to catch a glimpse of St. Paul’s, but the buildings were too tall, and there was nothing to orient himself by. He no longer even knew which direction the cathedral lay in.

Yes, you do, he thought. You know exactly where it is. On top of Ludgate Hill. All you need to do is climb up the hill. But that was easier said than done. There were no streets going up. They all led inexorably downhill, away from St. Paul’s and from the tube station. But if he continued downhill, he’d eventually come to Blackfriars, or, if he was too far east, Cannon Street. Either tube station would have trains which could take him to the station where Polly was. He turned down a lane and then another.

After two more turns and another cul-de-sac, he came to a broader street. Old Bailey? If so, Blackfriars lay at the foot of it. It was finally growing light, at least enough to see that the street was lined with shops, and the shops had awnings. He splashed across the street, eager to get even partially out of the rain.

Nearly all the shop windows were boarded up. Only the second from the corner still had glass in it, and as he drew nearer, he saw it was boarded up as well. What he’d thought was glass was actually a reflection from a garland of silver-paper letters nailed to the wood. They spelled out Happy Christmas.

It can’t be Christmas, he thought. If it was, there’d have been a Christmas tree in the nave and another outside in the porch. John Bartholomew had talked about its having been repeatedly knocked over by blast.

But the trees could very well have been there. He wouldn’t have seen them in the darkness.

But if it’s Christmas, he thought, that means there’s been nearly four months’ slippage, and that’s impossible. The increase was only two days. But he knew it was true. That was why it was so cold. And so dark. The net had sent him through at four A.M., but in December four A.M. would be pitch-black.

“Ascertain your temporal location immediately upon arrival.” Wasn’t that what he was always enjoining his students to do? He should have realized it couldn’t be September tenth when there weren’t any fires. They hadn’t got the ones on the docks out for nearly a week.