For a brief moment she does not see him, so that he is free to enjoy watching her. As he does so he notices something curious. Lilith takes out a handkerchief to dab at her dust-smarted eyes. As she is putting it back into her bag she drops it. It falls to the ground, and she stoops to pick it up, but she does not reach the ground. Instead, the small square of cotton and lace appears to rise up to meet her outstretched hand. Bram marvels at what it must be like to have magic as part of one’s everyday life. At one’s disposal for things both trivial and important.

And then she looks up and spies Bram, and her green eyes shine, and the smile with which she greets him warms his heart. As soon as she reaches him he snatches up her hand and presses it to his lips. For a moment they stand close, without speaking, desire fizzing between them. At last she pulls away.

“Come along,” she says, smiling, “I want to visit the wolves.”

They walk on past the aquarium, beyond the new Mappin Terrace with its bears and arctic animals, and to the very edge of the zoological gardens where a wooded area borders Regent’s Park. Here a shaggy-pelted wolf pack have been given an unlikely home. Lilith loops her arm through Bram’s, and they watch the lupine family stretch and yawn and stir themselves for a new day.

“They don’t look at all savage,” she says.

“That’s because there is a sturdy fence between us and them.”

“No, it’s because they are never hungry. They don’t have to hunt. Everything is given to them.”

“I shouldn’t imagine they mind. Look at that one, he’s positively plump,” Bram points to a black wolf lolling beneath a silver birch.

“It isn’t right. They should be living wild, not in a park.”

But Bram is not listening. He pulls away from her, his eyes wide, his expression stricken, as he feels the weight of a terrible coldness, a dreadful dark energy, enter his body.

“My God!” he cries, struggling for air. It is as if he is being crushed from within, his lungs pressed as though in the grasp of some unseen giant, his heart constricted, unable to beat as it should.

“Oh, Bram! What is it, what’s the matter?” She gasps as Bram staggers backward, clutching at his head.

He opens his mouth to speak, to try to tell her of the fierce ringing inside his skull, of his fight to breathe, of the blackness descending upon him, but he can form no words, can make no sound.

I am dying! Dear Lord, my body surely cannot withstand …

“Bram! Listen to me. You must listen to me!”