She gave the mews one last look, then turned again. And cried out: “Oh!”

A man was standing directly before her. Close, standing too close, standing over her, his face pressing down on her out of the dark.

Her first instinct was to try to charge past him. Don’t talk. Don’t engage him. She lowered her head, stepped forward. The man put out his hand. Which made her heart catch. Which made her seriously consider screaming for help.

“Wait,” he said. “Miss Endering. Sophia. Don’t be afraid.”

That stopped her. The fact that he knew her name. His tone of voice. The perfect English, a German accent faint, refined. She pulled up. Examined him. An earnest young man, bundled in a pea jacket, the collar turned up around his cheeks. Very handsome, very young. Incredibly earnest. With wavy blond hair and a warm gaze she could see even in the dark. But a stranger, she was sure of it.

He smiled. “No, no, you don’t know me. I am the Resurrection.”

The first jolt of surprise was gone. Sophia was in command of herself again. Still nervous—with him so close, and the shadows so close around them, with him a head taller than she, towering over her, and so close that she felt the heat of him in the cool air. Two minutes ago she had been in the warmth and the light and the crowd of Bolt’s party. Surrounded by chattering, laughing people, the taste of wine on her lips. She missed all that pretty badly just now, alone with this man in the cold. The Resurrection.

But she knew she could trust her voice to sound collected, firm. “You’re standing too near. It’s threatening,” she said. “Step back if you want to speak to me.”

He did at once, but he didn’t seem glad of it. Seemed uncomfortable in the brighter light of the street. He looked in both directions quickly. When a taxi raced down past them towards the avenue, Sophia saw him tuck his chin into his collar to keep his face out of the beams of the headlamps.

“All right,” she said then. “Go on. What is it?”

The taxi was gone. The street behind him was quiet again. The moon was hidden in the clouds. The young man lifted his earnest gaze to her. Licked his lips nervously. A lock of his yellow hair stirred on his brow, a brow boyishly smooth. There was something just then so naked in his expression that Sophia felt herself soften, touched.

“I’m going to be murdered tonight,” the young man said to her all at once. He gave the breath of a laugh, as if embarrassed by the melodrama. “It is the man who buys The Magi who will kill me.”