On her boat the hush gradually lifted; conversation leaked out in every quarter as to what all had witnessed. “Lavish costume party,” one voice offered. “Stunning! Someone’s really gone to a lot of trouble to get it right,” said another. Someone else sounded unnerved with the comment: “Sinister, if you ask me. Like spies watching us all.” The noise flowed and then ebbed again, as the dancers returned inside, opening and then closing the doors behind them.

The boat had traveled to the end of its upstream journey, turned, and headed back downriver. Lucy was speechless, and Catherine Denham tilted her head pensively to one side. They exchanged sympathetic looks, but no words.

“Seems like they came right from Hampton Court Palace,” Angelica said to a preoccupied-looking Zarina. The speaker was like a delighted child who’d witnessed a special privilege. “Through the crack in time that’s supposed to link the worlds of the living and the dead.”

“Twickenham Studios, without question,” Zarina insisted.

“It was from Oxford, actually,” Lucy confided only to herself.

Alex and Amel had broken right away from their clique, and stood on either side of Lucy as she perched, glued to the rail, staring across the darkened water, studying the river’s edge for signs of the red-gold barge and the stairs onto which its passengers had alighted.

Alex looked through everything, everyone, repeating the strange words he’d seen with Simon, just a fortnight earlier: “Sator Arepo…” He placed a gentle hand that radiated heat onto Lucy’s back, then quickly reached her wrap and tucked it around her shoulders, sensing her shivering. “‘The moving finger writes,’” he suggested quietly, and Amel nodded contemplatively.

No one spoke further. As the boat traversed Mortlake Reach, they were all engaged in their own thoughts. There was the spire of St. Mary’s, Mortlake, set behind a row of cottages, though under the deeper shroud of darkness they couldn’t pick out the houses they had seen a short time ago. Warehouses stood; a pub; a pretty Georgian building. But the great barge, the stairs, and the people, had been swallowed by the night.

JUNE 15, 1583, MORTLAKE

THE QUEEN’S ROYAL BARGE IS SWINGING ACROSS THE RISING TIDE OF THE Thames and heading toward the steps at Mortlake Reach. Shouts and cries can be heard from the occupants of the barge, as it wallows momentarily in the ripe currents created by the other, strange vessel. An autumn wind, it seems, has disturbed their June day. The river is always awash with traffic; but ordinary mortals should be steering clear of the Queen’s own craft.

Signor Bruno silences them: “She is no mortal. She has been through the realms of the dead. A goddess. An angel of light. Lucina—the light giver.” His thick Italian accent pronounces the English words with marked clarity. He signals to someone hurrying to greet them.