‘The air was so much lighter then,’ he said, taking a bowl from Zita’s hands. She sat down opposite him, looking at him with that slightly sideways appraisal. ‘The light … It was like you could tell the sun was younger. I could almost feel the world turning.’

‘He showed me too,’ said Zita, ‘when I first came here.’

‘And how did you get here? How long have you been here? Five hundred years, like Jack and Kit?’

Zita lapped at her porridge delicately, pausing to pour milk onto it, making a puddle. ‘I used to do this in the nursery,’ she said. ‘Nanny always hated me doing it and used to threaten me with the hairbrush. She was a dear old thing, though, and never really spanked me.’

‘You’re the best at not answering questions.’ Leana came to him and put her head on his knee. He scratched her head, and she closed her eyes with pleasure.

Sighing theatrically, Zita drew her shawl over her face. ‘I am Al-Shabar, concubine to the Sultan.’

‘Now you’re just being silly.’

‘I like to keep you on your toes. Well, now, let me see. How long have I been here?’ She cleared her throat, and her eyes were suddenly full of sorrow. ‘When I was born, the good old widowed queen was still just on the throne.’

‘Victoria? Queen Victoria?’ Tom could not keep the note of surprise out of his voice, even despite what he had seen so far. How many years ago was that? Over a hundred. He put his spoon down.

Zita removed a locket from around her neck, and placed it on the kitchen table, turning it over so that Tom could see the inscription on the back.

‘ZAR, 1900,’ Tom read out. Once more his head began to spin, and he clutched the kitchen table for support.

‘You want to hear my story?’ she murmured, stroking the locket gently. Tom nodded. She gathered herself together. ‘Then I’d better make some more tea.’

She went about the tea as if it were a ceremony, boiling the kettle till it whistled, pouring the water over tea-leaves in a pot, and setting out tea-cups and a bowl of sugar with silver tongs, beside a little silver milk jug in the shape of a cow. ‘Now we must wait until it brews. Nanny would be awfully cross if I didn’t let it brew properly.’

They sat in silence for a few minutes, Zita contemplating her hands, and Tom staring into his distorted reflection on the sugar bowl. Eventually, Zita roused herself. ‘I’ll be mother,’ she said, an ironic gleam in her eye, and poured out a dark golden stream of tea into her cup first, and then into Tom’s.

‘Tell me what happened.’ Tom leaned forwards. ‘I have to know.’