'Oh, that was good, balls-for-brains,' muttered Lola as they moved off, 'get us both into trouble, why don't you?'

'Me?' he returned angrily. 'Your knickers are off so often I'm amazed you bother with them at all.'

'DID YOU HEAR ME?' I yelled after them, and there was quiet.

Gran was picking bits of broken vase from the table top. 'Where were we?' she asked.

'Er … retaking my memories?'

'Exactly so. She'll be wanting to try and break you down, so things are going to get worse before they get better – only when she thinks she has defeated you can we go on the offensive.'

'What do you mean by getting worse? Hades? Landen's eradication? Darren? How far do I have to go?'

'Back to the worst time of all – the truth about what happened during the charge.'

'Anton.'

I groaned and rubbed my face.

'I don't want to go back there, Gran, I can't!'

'Then she'll pick away at your memory until there is nothing left; she doesn't want that – she's after revenge. You have to go back to the Crimea, Thursday. Face up to the worst and grow stronger from it.'

'No,' I said, 'I won't go back there and you can't make me.'

I got up without a word and went to have a bath, trying to soak away the worries. Aornis, Landen, Goliath, the ChronoGuard and now Perkins and Snell's murders here in the BookWorld; I'd need a bath the size of Windermere to soak those away. I had come to Caversham Heights to stay away from crisis and conflict – but they seemed to follow me around like a stray dodo.

I stayed in the bath long enough to need to top it up with hot water twice, and when I came out I found Gran sitting on the laundry basket outside the door.

'Ready?' she asked softly.

'Yes,' I replied, 'I'm ready.'

I slept in my own bed – Gran said she would sit in the armchair and wake me if things looked as though they were getting out of hand. I stared at the ceiling, the gentle curve of the wooden panelling and the single-domed ceiling light. I stayed awake for hours, long after Gran had fallen asleep and dropped her copy of Tristram Shandy on the floor. Night and sleep had once been a time of joyous reunion with Landen, a collection of moments that I treasured: tea and hot buttered crumpets, curled up in front of a crackling log fire, or golden moments on the beach, cavorting in slow motion as the sun went down. But no longer. With Aornis about, my memory was now a battleground. And with the whistle of an artillery shell I was back where I least wanted to be – the Crimea.