I wasn’t alone for long. I felt a small hand clasp mine and I looked down. There was a young girl grinning up at me, dressed in a swimming costume and holding a beach ball, the snow melting on her cheeks as it settled.

‘Hey, Gretl,’ I said.

‘Hey, Charlie,’ she replied. ‘She was unworthy, you know.’

‘I know.’

She squeezed my hand again.

‘You are noble and wise beyond your understanding, Charlie. It’s important you know that.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, ‘but I don’t feel it. HiberTech are about to retire all the nightwalkers from the Cambrensis, including Birgitta and Webster. I’m due to be murdered in my sleep as soon as it’s noted Aurora is missing or dead or however it works out there, and my nightwalker retrieval plan counted on me actually staying alive.’

‘We might be able to do something about that,’ said Gretl. ‘I have a feeling that Aurora might not be quite as dead as you suppose. There’s a reason I didn’t take her clothes, or her finger. She still needs them. Here she is.’

A figure was walking out of the snow towards us. I recognised her not by her features, but by her demeanour. She looked scared and a little confused. Actually, a lot confused.

‘I feel kind of odd,’ said Toccata, with both her eyes looking straight at me, ‘like I’m waking up from a very wild and implausible dream.’

‘Not yet you’re not,’ I said, ‘but soon. And there’s one or two urgent things I’d like you to do for us.’

She tilted her head on one side.

‘Does it involve bringing down HiberTech?’

‘It does.’

‘Then let’s hear them.’

The Awakening

The Kiki (n.): From Mid-Wales hibernatory mythology. A benign Winter spirit that manifests itself during the hibernational Dreamstate, and is generally thought to keep the inexperienced sleeper from falling too far into the abyss of deep hibernation. (See also Legends: Gronk; Slink; Dorweevil; Thermalovaur.)

In a desperate alliterative bid to be the first to coin a phrase, the press variously dubbed it: ‘The Wonder of Wales’, ‘The Miracle of the Marches’ and ‘The Sensation of Sector Twelve’. Ultimately, to no avail. Historically and medically it became known simply as ‘The Awakening’.

All told, there were sixty-one nightwalkers across Sector Twelve who suddenly found themselves awake, one after the other, at five and three-quarter minute intervals, continually over the space of six hours. Of those, five were being harboured at different locations in the Sector, eight were still wandering around outside, an unreliable twelve were reported from HiberTech’s Redeployment labs, and an impressive thirty-six were, for no clearly explained reason or purpose, all gathered at the Cambrensis Dormitorium.