She turns her head, half dazed as if in a dream. And yet there they are. Russet wings, larger than an eagle’s, fanning slowly out from her shoulders. Part of her. She lets out a short laugh, a yelp of disbelief, as thoughts tumble through her head, a discordant jumble of noise.

A branch snaps, crackles through the air. Etta glances up to see a youth at the opposite edge of the clearing, eyes wide, confused and scared. A poacher, looking for something for the pot. Tensed and primed, ready to spring, his crossbow is already raised towards her, hands trembling.

‘No,’ she says, holding her hand up as if to ward him off. ‘No!’

But the word has barely left her mouth before the bolt flies towards her, slicing through the air. Her feet no longer touch the dank leaves of the forest, but instead hover an inch or so above it. She has no time to consider this, this sense of being both herself and something more, before the bolt thuds home, knocking her backwards and forcing her to the ground. Her breath rasps, bubbles up inside, thick with crimson blood. The boy’s boots thud towards her, his face swimming into view but she can no longer find any words within.

She gasps for air. Newly formed impossible wings dig hard into her back as she looks up at the canopy of trees. Papery leaves whirl down towards her in a cascade of colour. Remnants of the summer past. It reminds her of something and she grasps for the memory, deep in the labyrinth of her mind: the tiny motes of dust trapped in the sunbeams of her father’s library when she was a child. Patterns in the air. Angel dust, he used to call it. Angel dust.

Etta smiles as her eyes close, the darkness already settling in.

Eight days earlier

Eight days earlier

LONDON

The pocket watches are already being pulled out by the time Samuel Covell cries, ‘Time me, gentleman, please!’ to the baying crowd of spectators crammed tightly within the small operating theatre at St Peter’s Hospital.

Edward Meake, his best friend and dearest rival, watches from the side, a faint amused smile on his lips as Samuel flamboyantly wields a long sharp knife in one hand and a bone saw in the other, both of which he will shortly use to amputate the patient’s leg. Edward’s elder by a handful of months, Samuel and he had first bonded when they both studied medicine some many moons ago. They had dissected, dissolved, sliced and preserved in the name of science and got royally drunk numerous times in the name of friendship. Samuel was Edward’s closest friend and he loved him almost as much as he envied him.