He awoke to the worried face of John Danvers, and one look at it was enough to convince him that his adventures in the past hadn't altered the present in the slightest.

He was in his bed at the Academy. Up here, the ivy clustered so thickly over the windowpanes that it was like a pair of translucent green shutters. He had chosen the room for this very reason. It had the best view in the Academy: no Oxford.

Daylight was battling through the ivy, which meant that his half-hour in the past had been much longer here. Perhaps he had actually slept through an entire night. Manda would be pleased – although probably not once she heard what he'd dreamed about.

He fumbled in the sweaty tangle of bed-sheets and extracted his arm. The skin of his knuckles was unbroken, but the hollow feeling in his chest had come with him.

Danvers took a step back on seeing his face, but he still had the effrontery to say, "Thank heavens! You're awake."

"What are you doing here?" said Jack.

"She insisted on watching over you," he said, waving a hand at Elsie, who was standing by the ivy-shuttered window. "And I could hardly allow her to remain in your rooms unchaperoned--"

"Get out, both of you."

"But--"

"I said get out!"

It was half an hour before he felt ready to face them, even though his blank expression didn't alter in all that time. He was beyond tears now. He just wanted to find his three missing girls and then get busy dying. When the French girl found him, he'd be ready. 

Danvers must have been waiting for him outside his door, because as soon as he emerged, the bastard started trotting at his heels, trying to draw a thousand matters of business to his attention.

"There's a man from the Oxford Times waiting in your office, and Miss Ginniver's sent a rather strongly-worded letter, saying you ruined her wedding-night. And people are queuing all the way down Headington Hill to speak to Elsie--"

"Fine," said Jack. "I'll deal with it."

"Soon?"

"As soon as I've spoken to her myself."

"She – uh – she didn't mean to upset you."

"I'm not upset," said Jack. This was technically true. You needed internal organs to feel upset, and he seemed to have left his in the past. Perhaps Ellini was dancing with them.

He got rid of Danvers by telling him it was vital for Elsie's safety that he supervise the queue of visitors outside the gates. Elsie herself was in the Entrance Hall, her face turned towards the window which looked out over the gravel drive. If she was apprehensive about the crowd, if she was guilty about what she'd put him through, or offended that he had ordered her out of his rooms, she didn't show it. The look on her face was one of childish excitement, and she had barely wished him good morning when the reason for this excitement tumbled out of her lips.

"I haven't been idle." 

"I'll bet," said Jack, holding up a hand to stem the tide of explanations. "Can I ask you a question before you tell me about your next bewildering scheme?" 

Elsie tilted her head. He could tell she didn't like being derailed in the middle of her speech, but she was also curious – unfailingly, inescapably curious. She had to hear him out. "Very well." 

"That place you sent me to – without my consent," he muttered. "It was a memory, yes? You didn't actually send me back in time?" 

Elsie faltered. He saw her lips move, as if she was trying out a few different responses before she settled on one. "It was the place I found... when I sent my mind in search of Ellini," she said at last. She drew herself up, as if daring him to make fun of her. "She lives there." 

"She doesn't live anywhere," said Jack, a bite of impatience in his voice. 

"We've agreed to disagree on that," Elsie retorted. "Whatever the state of her body, her heart lives in that moment, just before her life fell apart. That's what I was going to tell you. If she's alive forever in that memory, then I think you'll agree that the kindest thing would be to drag her out of it – make her live in the present again, even if, in the present, she's dead."

"Yes," said Jack, suddenly tired of arguing with her. "Fine. Whatever."

"And I know how to do it." She hesitated for a moment, swinging her arms in a way that reminded him painfully of Sita. "Well, actually, I don't know how it works, and I don't think I'm the one who can liberate her, but I have the formula. It just popped into my head while you were asleep. I suppose you'd call it a vision."

"Fine," Jack repeated. He wasn't even curious. Everything was rolling right off him now, like raindrops on an oilskin coat. Hope would never get its hooks into him again.

Elsie didn't notice the hollow tone – or, if she did, she must have mistaken it for meek acquiescence, because she smiled and presented him with a piece of paper.

The note was in Danvers's hand. She had obviously dictated to him. And it was very brief – a list with bullet-points, headed 'How to save Ellini from her past'. It reminded him of his hastily-scribbled instructions on how to destroy an academic. Beneath the heading were three words:

Ring.

Sister.

Piano.

Jack looked at it blankly for a few moments. He opened his mouth to ask her what it meant, but decided that the answer would be just as cryptic as the piece of paper. He folded it up and put it in his pocket.

"Thank you," he said. "Now, I haven't been idle either. Let's get the sentimental part out of the way first: I've brought you this."

He reached into the opposite pocket and drew out a slender chain, with a pendant on the end of it. It had been the setting for a jewel, but he'd prised that out, and now only the setting remained – an empty frame of delicate gold scroll-work. He'd had to shorten the chain too, but he was sure he'd got it right. That solitary, motionless star above her breast-bone was soldered into his memory.

He remembered that she couldn't see what he was holding, so he said, "It's a necklace. It used to have a jewel in the middle, but now it's empty. I'm just going to tie it round you. Don't panic."

She leaned her head forward obediently and let him fasten the chain – and whatever instinct it was that let her keep track of the lights on her body without the benefit of sight seemed to inform her exactly where the pendant rested. It was framing the lone star above her breast-bone, which had become the new jewel in the centre of the setting.

"Thank you," she said, placing her hand over setting and star. "It's because she was a jewel of a woman, yes? And because I treasure her memory--"

"Yes, that's what I was going for," said Jack briskly. "Now let's get down to business. I need to use your abilities to locate the missing slave-girls." He didn't add 'And then I'm going to die', but he wouldn't have been surprised if she'd heard it. "So tell me: you can't see where new-breeds are?"

"No. Only demons."

"But new-breeds appear on your skin? You can tell me whether my three missing girls are alive?"

"Ye-es," she said slowly. "They're alive."

"Alive like you think Ellini is alive, or really alive?"

Elsie scowled at him, but there was no rebuke in the question – there was no anything in the question – so she answered it. "There's a difference in the feeling, if that's what you mean."

"Good. And you can't undo spells that have been placed on humans? Because the master's clerks are under some kind of enchantment that makes their tongues leap down their throats if they try to betray his whereabouts."

She made a face. "Yuk!"

"You can't undo it?" he insisted. "No power over human tongues?"

"No, I don't think so."

"O-kay, said Jack, tapping his fingers against the shackle at his wrist. "But if a similar spell was placed on a demon?"

"Which demons are you thinking of?"

"The gargoyles. Even if they don't know where he is now – because it sounds like they were useless as body-guards as soon as you woke up – they'll know about his hideaways, places he's gone to in the past. They can give me somewhere to start. You could make them speak, couldn't you? And you could understand them?" He licked his lips eagerly and added, "If nothing else, you could make them give me his name. All I need is his name."

"Yes," said Elsie, her face clearing. "I can't believe I didn't think of that before! And then I'll come with you to rescue them--"

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," said Jack, raising a cautionary hand that she couldn't see, and wouldn't have heeded even if she could. "Just get me his name."