I was there, right in the middle of the action, training alongside everyone else. Running back and forth on the increasingly churned-up lawns, taking turns leading and being led in the various battle groups. I was far too used to being a lone wolf, and that was a luxury I could no longer afford. So I charged again and again, running madly till my lungs ached and black spots flickered in front of my eyes, growing long golden blades from my armoured hands, and throwing myself into yet another savage, brutal melee.

I ached in every limb, and my heart pounded so hard I thought it might leap right out of my chest. And this was just a rehearsal for the real thing.

Apparently Giles had known something very like living battle armour in his far future time, because he had all kinds of ideas on how to make our armour a weapon in itself. During the short breaks between his carefully choreographed campaigns, he lectured us on how limited the family had always been in its thinking, where the armour was concerned. It didn’t have to be just a defence, a second skin to protect us and boost our strength and speed. James’s trick with the blades showed the armour could be made to respond to our thoughts and needs. If a sword, then why not a battle-ax? If I could raise spikes on my knuckles, why not all over my body? The armour was the shape it was only because it had never occurred to us that it could be anything else.

If you already have a miracle, why try to improve on it?

It took an outsider like Giles to make us see the armour’s true capabilities; that the possibilities were limited only by our lack of imagination. Once the idea took hold, there was no stopping us. It took a lot of concentration, but the strange matter of our armour moulded itself under the force of our various desires. Golden hands grew all kinds of weapons, and gleaming faces became scowling gargoyles, howling wolves, monsters, and angels. Pliable body shapes twisted and transformed, taking on mystical shapes and legendary forms. A few even grew golden wings from their backs and flapped awkwardly into the air. We couldn’t hold our new shapes for long, not yet; it took too much concentration. But who knew what might become possible after long practice?