‘That was the shittiest piece of mentoring I’ve ever heard,’ said a voice from across the room. It was a woman sitting with some workers in HiberTech uniforms, also waiting for the train. She had silver-streaked black hair tied up in a loose ponytail and a pale complexion that was almost creamy. Her battered combat fatigues displayed the shoulder stripe of the 4th Arid Legion, her twin Bambis were rigged for a cross-draw and around her neck was the dark burgundy pashmina worn by those who had served in the Ottoman campaign. Most notable about her, however, was her left eye, which looked blankly off and up – but her right eye stared at us all with a curiously unnerving intensity. She was knitting what appeared to be a bobble hat.

Logan stared back at her, momentarily shocked.

‘Well, well, well,’ he said at last, ‘if you’re here, Aurora, then who’s guarding the gates of hell right now?’

‘That’s hardly original,’ said Knitting Woman, getting up and walking closer. ‘How’s non-married life suiting you?’

Logan’s face fell. I was assuming this was the Aurora who was the head of HiberTech Security – the one who didn’t get along with Toccata, or seemingly with Logan either.

‘You had no right to do what you did, Aurora.’

‘Cry me a river, Logan. You and Toccata? It would never have worked out and we all knew it. I was doing you both a favour.’

‘Jealous, were you? Jealous that someone might have preferred Toccata over you?’

Fran and everyone else had muttered excuses about ‘laundry’ or an ‘important call’ and rapidly vacated the tearooms.

‘Jealous?’ she said. ‘Of what you have to offer? A second-rate Consul and a third-rate vaudeville act peddling fourth-rate advice to a fifth-rate Novice?’

The Chief stared at her for a moment. There was something odd about the exchange, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Logan was holding back, thinking, pulling his punches. Until now, I didn’t know that Logan and Toccata were to be married. This added a new dimension to everything.

‘What do you actually want, Aurora?’ asked Logan. ‘Must be something pretty big to have you crawling out from under your rock.’

‘I wanted to know what you’re doing heading into Sector Twelve. Considering past events, it’s something of a rash move.’

‘I was delivering a nightwalker,’ he said, ‘I thought my fax made that clear.’

‘You could have sent anyone to do that. There’s nothing going on in Sector Twelve, Logan, just a deluded Chief Consul trying to rekindle some long-dead embers from a doomed love affair.’

‘Why are you so concerned about Toccata all of a sudden?’

Aurora thought about this for a moment.

‘Because despite everything, she’s like a sister to me, and sisters hold together, even with our disagreements.’

They stared at each other for a moment.