Above the dark slate roofs, the firewatchers’ platforms and terra cotta chimneys, a reluctant winter sun struggled through a sullen sky and the city grew more orderly. Alice headed south toward a Gothic building flanked by taller neighbors, trying not to step on the cracks between the paving stones as she ran through her speech one more time.

The old five-story building creaked as it welcomed her inside. Since the entrance hall was empty, she stood and looked longingly around: at the substantial glass lantern overhead, still hanging obstinately despite the bombing raids; at the black-and-white tiled floor with its worn oriental rug, and the two wingback chairs on either side of the buffet table. An oversized mirror hung above it, reflecting the vase of cascading silk flowers. On the opposite wall, an imposing carved Victorian coat stand resembled an upended fishing vessel full of coats, hats and umbrellas, with Nelson’s leash dangling at one end; he was her employer’s black Labrador.

She dropped her belongings at her feet, heart hammering in her chest, grateful no one was there to see her disheveled state. She’d caught her reflection in a shop window: her dark-blond hair frizzy in the damp air, navy eyes ringed red with tiredness. Her mother was right, she did need more sleep. For her and the baby’s sake.

Her colleagues had told her that lots of people had once milled about in the entryway to Partridge Press: agents, delivery boys, a visitor from one government department or another, or a journalist on the scent of a story about one of their writers. Their offices had once been in Paternoster Row, in the heart of the city, until a tragic night in December 1940 when their building and seventeen other publishing offices had been destroyed, larger ones like Hutchinson, Longman and Blackwood included. The firms had moved to locations around the British Museum and further west, the event uniting the industry as publishers lent each other office space in a show of solidarity. That was when she had joined Partridge, and she still tried hard not to imagine the collective loss of books and artworks. Her company had lost thousands of works and illustrations, and most of their steel and copper engraving plates and woodcuts, and they were still struggling to recover.

She took another long sweep of the hallway, trying to quell her fear as she remembered the day nearly two years ago when she’d stood in this exact spot, an administrator with little knowledge of the industry. How welcoming they’d been, and how like a family they’d become.