And he’s right, I think. Everyone in the stories lives happily ever after.

It makes me think of another story: before I knew I had another mum, I never longed for anyone else. It was only when I heard about Miranda and was told the tale of her life and of her death that I missed her, grieved her. Nothing new had happened – it had always been so – but I suddenly felt the heaviness of loss like it might pull me under. Nothing had changed, except my story.

“My story is different,” says Longsight. “My story does not end with a death – no, for my death was just a beginning. When the storytellers speak of me, they will never say ‘he was’ – only ‘he is’.”

“And you foresaw this?” I ask curiously. “You knew you were … immortal?”

“I knew there was something special about me, yes,” he says. “That I was different – as though my ancestors had set me aside for their own purposes. And the people could feel it too – they said that I was Saint reborn, come for a new era of hope, power and change.”

People did speak of him that way, in his election campaign and beyond. I had felt the same. Dan Longsight gave us all a feeling that something better was coming. I loved him for it, once. I wish I could say that even then I saw through him, that my gut instinct had warned me to distrust him, but it would be a lie. I had been as taken in as everyone else. Well, almost everyone else – the crows weren’t fooled. Connor, Oscar and Obel, and the other rebels. Dad. Why hadn’t he told me?

“You tried to talk me out of it, didn’t you, Jack?” Longsight says. Minnow says nothing in response, and Longsight, smiling, carries on. “When I shared my plan with you – to lure Sana, to allow her to commit the act she had been desperate for for so long – I believe it left you shocked.” Minnow’s eyebrows raise momentarily, and I wonder how shocked he was. Hadn’t Sana said she and Jack had worked together? “I saw the doubt in your eyes: why invite your enemy to your quarters? Why make it so easy for them? Why choose death? But now you understand. I reached the high office of mayor because I am deliberate, clever, and because I have very little time for pity.”

“And because you’re special,” I say blandly.

“And because of that.” He smiles at me. “We knew that Sana would not be able to resist a public spectacle – we fed information to the crows so that she knew when and where the public address would happen. It was too good for her to resist – a chance to catch us unawares, or so she thought. An opportunity not only to defeat the leader of her enemies, but to do it right in front of them.”