No one thought there was any need to teach any more: a dream is just the subconscious mind attempting to form a narrative from a jumble of thoughts, facts and memories and did nothing but sap the resources that led us healthily to the Spring.

‘And Aurora?’

‘Head of Security at HiberTech. A shit of the highest order. She and Toccata don’t get along. Actually, it’s worse than that; they loathe one another. When it comes to HiberTech/Consul politics and Sector Twelve, there is just one rule: avoid.’

‘Aurora,’ I murmured, ‘the goddess of the dawn.’

‘The goddess of trouble,’ said Logan, climbing to his feet as our train arrived at the station, ‘but I’d said I’d help out.’

I took a compartment with the bouzouki-playing Mrs Tiffen, fed her a bar of nutty nougat and, thus sated, she began to play. ‘Help Yourself’ on the bouzouki once again. Logan was less tolerant of bouzouki than I, so went and sat in first class.

Mrs Tiffen and I were joined by a woman who turned out to be the Winter actor, and the train left the station. I didn’t yet know it, but accompanied by a woman of no dreams, I was on the way to meet the woman of my dreams.

Merthyr

‘ . . . The root of traditional “Winter embrace” lay in shared body warmth for survival. So while a Summer hug is only ever a brief clench, in the Winter, bodies are held intimately together, the left hand behind the neck, the right on the lower back, heads to the left, right cheeks touching, breath sounding in each other’s ear. Outside of the Winter context, it would be considered at best inappropriate, at worst, physical trespass  . . . ’

– The Hiberculture of Man, by Morris Desmond

The Winter thespian had listened intently as I told her how I’d gone from Assistant House Manager at St Granata’s to Winter Consul Novice in an afternoon. I didn’t name Jack Logan as my mentor, but she’d understood the discretion. I hadn’t told her about Toccata’s stories regarding viral dreams owing to operational security, nor Mother Fallopia’s unkindness, this time out of misplaced loyalty, but I told her all about the Beryl Cook overheat and Oliver Tiffen’s sacrifice, which seemed to strike a chord.

‘A brave man,’ she murmured. ‘Anyone close to you ever tripped the Night Fandango?’