below. He saw round cheeses with oil dripping from them, herrings pickled in brine, sides of bacon. There were barrels of honey and of biscuits, and casks of wine carried shoulder high across the kitchen. As he watched, Cati darted across the top of the barrels with a piece of bread in each hand. Before the men could react, she had thrust the bread into the honey and skipped away laughing.
“Here,” Cati said, thrusting one of the pieces of bread into his hand. The bread was warm and nutty, and the honey was rich and reminded him of hot Summer days spent running through heather moorlands.
“Hello, Contessa,” he heard Cati say. Owen turned to see a woman standing beside the girl. She was tall and slender, and her ash-blonde hair hung to her waist. She was wearing a plain white dress which fell to her ankles. Her eyes were grey and ageless. Despite the heat of the kitchen, her brow was smooth and dry, and despite all the cooking and frying and battering, there wasn’t a trace of a stain on her white dress.
“Hello, Wakeful,” the woman said. Her voice was deep and low.
“Contessa is in charge of food and cooking and things,” Cati said. “We have to live off supplies until we can plant and get hunting parties out.”
“Hunting parties?” Owen said, thinking of the neat fields and little town with its harbour and housing estates. “There’s nothing to hunt around here. I mean, it’s the twenty-first century. You buy stuff in shops.”
Cati and Contessa exchanged a look, then Cati reached out and touched Owen’s sleeve. Almost casually, she pushed her finger against the cloth and it gave way, ripping silently. Contessa and Cati exchanged a look. Owen stared, wondering why she had torn his sleeve, and how she had managed to do it so easily.
“I know it’s all very strange,” Contessa said gently, “but if you search in your heart, down deep, I think you’ll find that in a way, it mightn’t be so strange after all.”
Before he could answer, Cati leapt to her feet. “Quick!” she shouted, spraying them both with crumbs. “They’ll be raising the Nab. I nearly forgot. Come on!” Tugging at Owen’s arm, she ran off.
“Go on,” Contessa said. “It’s worth seeing.” Owen thought there was something he should say, but his mind was blank. With a quick smile he ran after Cati. Contessa watched him go, her face kind but grave.
“Like your father before you, you will be tested,” she murmured. “Like your father.” With these words, sorrow seemed to fill her face. With a sigh, she turned back to the bustle of the kitchen.
When Owen emerged on to the corridor, he saw that Cati was almost lost in the crowds ahead. He dashed after her, but the flaps of leather coming loose on his trainers made it hard to run. Cati dived through another doorway and Owen, following, found himself on yet another twisting staircase rising upwards.
“Hurry up!” Cati shouted back to him. He was panting for breath when he emerged into daylight at the top. He stumbled on the top step and shot forward, landing flat on his face to find himself looking down the sheer wall of the Workhouse to the ground hundreds of metres below. A hand on his collar hauled Owen back. Cati was surprisingly strong and she practically lifted him to his feet before he pushed her hand away.
“I’m all right,” he said, trying to sound gruff. “Leave me alone. I can look after myself.” If she was offended by his tone, she didn’t show it. She met his eyes for a few seconds and he felt that he was being judged by an older and wiser mind, but he thought he saw sympathy there as well. “What is so important anyway?”
She pointed behind him. Owen realised that they were standing on a flat platform in the middle of the Workhouse roof. The slates on the roof were buckled and covered in mildew, and the stonework was weathered and cracked. In the middle of the platform was a large round hole.
“It’s a hole,” he said. “I can see that.”
“Listen,” she said. At first, he could hear a faint rumbling deep in the hole. Then there were deep groaning and complaining noises, as if some very old machinery was grumbling into life. There was a boom which sounded a long way away and then the rumbling got louder and Owen started to feel tremors in the ground beneath his feet. As the rumbling grew, the whole building seemed to shake and pieces of crumbling stone began to fall from the parapet.
“What is it?” He looked at Cati, but her attention was on the vast gaping hole in front of them. More loud groanings and creakings and protesting sounded from the hole, followed by a long, ominous shriek.
“Stand back!” Cati shouted above the noise.
Just as he did, a vast cloud of steam burst upwards and then, with terrifying speed, what looked like the top of a lighthouse shot from the hole – a lighthouse which seemed to be perched on top of a column of brass, which was battered and scarred and scratched and dulled as though it was ancient. Owen realised that the thing was coming out of the hole section by section, like a telescope, the sections sliding over each other with deafening groans and shudders and bangs, the whole structure swaying from side to side so that he thought it would fall on top of them. Cati gripped his arm.
“Jump!” she yelled, propelling him forward. The stained brass wall reared up dizzily in front of him and he saw himself rebounding off it, being flung over the parapet.
“Grab hold!” Cati shouted, just as Owen was about to hit the wall. Terrified, he glanced down and saw a brass rail coming towards him at great speed. He grabbed it with both hands and Cati pushed him over it, until he landed on his back on a narrow walkway as the platform shot upwards, swaying and groaning sickeningly.
After what seemed like an eternity, the platform heaved and clanged to a halt. Owen raised himself cautiously on one elbow and looked through the railing. It was a long way down. The figures on the ground below them were tiny. He turned and looked up. The little turreted point that resembled the top of a lighthouse was maybe twenty metres above him. Despite the battered look of the rest of the structure, the glass gleamed softly as if it had just been polished.
“What is it?” he said, his voice sounding a bit more shaky than he would have liked.
“This is the Nab,” Cati said.
“What’s that up there?”
“That? That’s the Skyward,” she said, almost dreamily.
“What’s it for?”
“For seeing, if it lets you. For seeing across time.”
“You could have killed us,” he said, “jumping like that.”
“Don’t be cross,” she said. “I knew you wouldn’t jump on your own.” Owen opened his mouth then closed it again. There didn’t seem to be anything to say. He looked around and saw that the platform they were on joined two sections of a winding staircase which led to the Skyward. He got to his feet, holding on to the rail. A sudden gust of wind caused the whole structure to sway gently. Owen took a firmer hold and looked out across the river.
Where Johnston’s yard had been there were trenches and tall figures in white, although the pale mist that came and went made it difficult to get a proper look at them. But there was no mistaking the defences that had been thrown up on his own side of the river. Earthworks topped with wooden pallisades. Deep trenches. And down near the river, hidden by trees, the flicker of that blue flame. Further in the distance he saw the sun touch the horizon,
