The crowds drifted away from each other and Iona walked back toward her house, which was a very short distance from the school. As she turned into her street she glanced into the window of one of her neighbors. She could see two people sitting on either side of a table, their attention focused on each other, engrossed in conversation. This was a very common sight across the city, it was how most people spent their spare time, and Iona knew she wasn’t meant to look—it was a private thing. She wondered, not for the first time, why nobody had ever invited her to do it with them. She never asked anyone—it didn’t seem right to. Maybe she should have asked Weston. If there was anyone she could have asked it was him.

Iona returned home and sat on the bench in her living room. She picked up a book and tried to read, but couldn’t focus so she put the book down. The image of that man leaping onto the coffin, the feeling of Alyssa’s hat under her fingers—these things kept forcing their way to the front of her consciousness. She tried reading the newspaper for a bit instead but couldn’t focus on that either so she reorganized her furniture. Eventually, after hours of turning over the events of a very strange day in her mind, she decided to go to sleep.

As Iona closed the shutters and settled down in bed her unease coalesced into a single thought: when Weston had started working at the school, she remembered realizing there had been a complete turnover in the school’s staff—except for her. Now, with Weston gone, there had been a complete staff turnover again. Except for her.

* * *

The king looked out across the city. He didn’t have a good view out of this window at the moment because this side of the tower was covered in scaffolding. His view was often spoiled by scaffolding. But he could see the Point of Return. At night the light from its furnace could be seen blazing through the windows.

“I feel like I should have gone to the funeral for that Weston guy,” he said.

“Why?” said Clarence, trotting over to him and jumping up onto the dressing table. “You only ever met him twice.”

The king turned to Clarence, surprised. “I met him?”

“At opening ceremonies. And only very briefly.”

“Huh.” The king turned back to the window. “He meant a lot to people though, didn’t he? There was a lot of warmth in those tributes. Maybe I should have gone down there and told them . . . I dunno, that I liked reading them.”

“It might have looked like favoritism, with the funerals of the other victims also happening today.”

“I could’ve gone to all of them. I had time.”

“Nobody expects that.”

“Hmm.” The king felt like it was a long time since he’d had proper contact with the public. He wouldn’t say he felt lonely exactly, but . . .