Colin grabbed her around the waist and thrust her behind a pillar. “Shh,” he whispered against her ear. “I hear footsteps.”

She listened. “I don’t—” she began, and then did hear them. Footsteps from inside the main stairway. And a flash from a pocket torch.

They ducked farther behind the pillar and pressed against it, listening. The sound of footsteps came out onto the floor, into the north transept, and then there was another flash of light.

He’s looking at the wreckage, Polly thought.

More footsteps and a wide sweep of light as he shone the torch slowly around the transept.

“How much longer till the drop opens again?” Polly whispered to Colin.

“Twelve or thirteen minutes.” It wouldn’t open if the firewatcher was still there, of course, but they were running out of time. When the all clear went, the men would come down from the roofs, and from then on there’d be men in the Crypt and going off duty. She remembered the firewatchers on the morning after the twenty-ninth walking out through the nave, standing on the steps talking. And Mr. Dunworthy had said they made morning rounds, checking for incendiaries and damage.

Now the firewatcher was shining the torch up at the ceiling to see if something had fallen.

Leave, Polly said silently, but it was forever before the torch finally switched off and the footsteps went back upstairs.

They faded away, but Colin still didn’t move. He went on standing there, pressing her against the stone, his arm still around her, waiting. She could feel his breath against her cheek, feel his heart beating.

“I think he’s gone,” he whispered finally, his mouth against her hair. “More’s the pity.” And she felt her heart lift.

But how could even love repay him for the years, the youth he’d sacrificed for her?

“I wish we could stand here forever,” he said, pulling away from her, “but we’d better—” There was a flicker of light. “He’s back.” Colin pushed her behind the pillar. And a moment later he said, “That’s not a torch. It’s the shimmer. The drop’s already opening again.”

“No, it isn’t,” Polly said. “It’s from outside. A flare, I think.” But it must have been an incendiary because a yellow-orange light began to fill the aisle.

She hadn’t realized they were in the bay that held The Light of the World. As the light grew, as golden as the light inside the lantern, she could see the painting more clearly than she ever had. And Mr. Humphreys was right. There was something new to see every time you looked at it.

She had been wrong in thinking Christ had been called up against his will to fight in a war. He didn’t look—in spite of the crown of thorns—like someone making a sacrifice. Or even like someone determined to “do his bit.” He looked instead like Marjorie had looked telling Polly she’d joined the Nursing Service, like Mr. Humphreys had looked filling buckets with water and sand to save St. Paul’s, like Miss Laburnum had looked that day she came to Townsend Brothers with the coats. He looked like Captain Faulknor must have looked, lashing the ships together. Like Ernest Shackleton, setting out in that tiny boat across icy seas. Like Colin helping Mr. Dunworthy across the wreckage.