The cathedral, in spite of the spring weather and the nearby fires, was as cold as winter and very dark.

“Hear anything?” Colin whispered, pulling the door silently shut behind them.

“No,” Polly whispered back. Only the audible hush St. Paul’s always had. The sound of space and time. “I know the way,” she said softly, and led them up the south aisle. There was enough light from the fire-lit clouds and the searchlights to navigate by, but only just.

The long walk, and that last sprint across to the porch, had taken its toll on Mr. Dunworthy. He was badly winded and leaned heavily on Colin’s arm. Polly led them past the spiral staircase she’d fled up the night of the twenty-ninth, past the chapel where they’d held Mike’s funeral. Only he hadn’t really been dead.

No, that was wrong. He’d died that night in Croydon, before she ever came to the Blitz.

Up the aisle, past the blown-out windows to the bay where she’d found Mr. Dunworthy. She looked toward the niche where The Light of the World hung, as if she expected the golden-orange lantern to be glowing in the darkness, but it was too dark to see it, or the painting.

No, there it was. She could just make out the white robe, insubstantial as a ghost, and the pale gold of the flame within the lantern. And then, as if the flame was growing brighter, lighting the air around it, she began to be able to see the door and Christ’s crown of thorns, and finally his face.

He looked resigned, as though he knew that wretched door—to where? Home? Heaven? Peace?—would never open, and at the same time he seemed resolved, ready to do his bit even though he couldn’t possibly know what sacrifices that would require. Had he been kept here, too—in a place he didn’t belong, serving in a war in which he hadn’t enlisted, to rescue sparrows and soldiers and shopgirls and Shakespeare? To tip the balance?

“What’s that light?” Mr. Dunworthy whispered as the aisle grew brighter, and after a moment’s tense waiting, “It’s someone with a pocket torch.”

“No, it’s not,” Colin said. “It’s the drop. It’s opening.” He hurried them up the aisle to the dome.

We should have more than enough time, Polly thought. The shimmer was just beginning to brighten.

But she’d forgotten about the damage from the bomb. The huge crater in the center of the transept was still there, and piled around it, heaps of splintered wood, broken columns, and smashed masonry. Which they would have to climb over to reach the drop.

An attempt had been made to begin the cleanup, but it had only made it worse. They’d taken the sandbags which had protected the statues and piled them and stacks of wooden folding chairs across the entrance to the transept as a barricade and tossed the broken timbers and splintered rafters to the sides of the crater, in just the place where they needed to cross.