"Ah yes," said Dr Petrescu, the first time Danvers brought Elsie to the mortuary to see him. "You've gone insane, surely?"

"Uh, no sir," said Danvers, glancing anxiously at the Constable stationed in the doorway. It was impossible to see the doctor without a bodyguard these days. "In fact, I've brought my sister to meet you."

Elsie, in the tone of someone who had been practising this all morning, said, "How do you do, Dr Petrescu? I've heard so much about you."

The doctor got up from behind his desk – he had been allowed to occupy the Coroner's office, since the Coroner was still refusing to show up for work – and turned to the Constable in the doorway.

"Gleeson, would you mind nipping to the tobacconists in the Broad and buying a box of cigars for my guests? I'm sure you wouldn't like me to try the journey by myself."

Constable Gleeson nodded and shuffled away. After a few moments, he returned, smiling apologetically, and shut the door behind him.

"They seem very anxious to accommodate you," said Danvers, in the silence that followed.

"I'm not a prisoner, and they're not allowed to hold me in anything even resembling a cell," said Dr Petrescu, with his usual grim cheer. "They can only restrain me with reason, and they're not terribly adept at that. As a consequence, they try to keep me here by doing everything I say."

While all this had been going on, Elsie had been investigating the Coroner's office, running her hands over the highly-polished wood of the desk, batting at the tassels on the lampshade, trying to get her bearings without the benefit of sight. Her hair was now a warm, marmalade-orange, but Danvers was disconcerted to see that this disguise hadn't fooled the doctor for a moment.

"You are bringing her here because-?" Dr Petrescu prompted, with all his customary mildness.

Elsie's hands had worked her way towards him by now, and he froze when she tapped his chest, toyed with the buttons on his waistcoat and, giggling with delight, ran her fingers through the vastness of his moustache.

The doctor raised his eyebrows at Danvers, who said wretchedly, "Please let her, sir. She's just trying to find out what shape you are."

"You're the one who comes from the city to which Ovid was exiled," said Elsie conversationally, "after he displeased Augustus. Did you displease Augustus too?"

The doctor just stared at her, until Danvers muttered, "She remembers all the stories that Miss Syal told while reassembling her doll, sir. She says they brought her to life."

Dr Petrescu, still staring at her, said haltingly, "In a way, you could say I was in exile, even though it was my homeland. I was exiled from myself."

"Yes," said Elsie, tilting her head thoughtfully. "I seem to know, but not quite. Everything's still very tangled for me. At first, I thought all I remembered were the stories, but now there are other memories, not quite my own. I seem to have seen you, but through somebody else's eyes. Or perhaps hundreds of other eyes. You were younger then – you had a little moustache."

With what seemed a great effort, Dr Petrescu tore his eyes away from her face, and turned to Danvers.

"Mr Danvers," he said, in a shaky voice. "I assumed my telegram was fairly clear but, just in case it wasn't, let me explain why it was dangerous to bring your charming sister outside, and particularly dangerous to bring her to me. Firstly, the new-breeds of this city are exceedingly familiar with her face. Many of them have been staring at it every Sunday since early childhood. A bandage around the eyes and a slight change of hair-colour are unlikely to throw them off. And, secondly, if you bring her near me, you draw his attention to her."

Danvers squirmed. "You mean Jack? You think he's watching you night and day?"

"Would you be able to sleep, if you were him?"

"You really think he means to kill you?" Danvers persisted. 

"I do, Mr Danvers. He's gone insane – not that you have to be particularly insane to resent the people who stole your memories and made you cruelly indifferent to the woman you loved when she needed you most."

"You mustn't blame yourself, doctor."

"Don't worry. There is plenty of blame to go around." He tapped his fingers on the desk-top, and looked reluctantly back at Elsie. "Does she know anything about the other demons? Where they are? When they're coming? Whether they're angry?"

Danvers stared at him. "Why should there be others, sir?"

"There were others the last time she appeared."

Elsie raised her head defiantly. It was obviously annoying her that they were talking about her as though she wasn't there.

"If there are others, they'll be just like me," she said. "And like the fairy Peri Banou – capable of good as well as evil. That's what Mr Danvers says."

Danvers felt a small flush of pride that she put so much faith in his words. But he wasn't as proud of the words themselves. They were easy enough to believe when you were looking at Elsie. But a whole race of demons? Hundreds – thousands of them? Could they possibly be peaceful? And, even if they could, wouldn't their very presence start a war?

"Do you feel any connection to them?" asked Dr Petrescu. "You said you had seen me with other eyes. Do you often see with other eyes?"

Elsie hesitated, then leaned forwards. "Sometimes I can hear voices on the wind. But I expect that's just the electric fluid."

Again, Dr Petrescu raised his eyebrows at Danvers, who blushed. "I've – uh – been reading her the Encyclopaedia Britannica," he explained. "She wanted to know what the air was made of. We only have from A to C, but fortunately a great deal of this information was catalogued under 'Atmosphere'."

Dr Petrescu winced. "It's an old edition, I take it? Does it mention phlogisticated and dephlogisticated air?"

"Yes!" said Elsie, who seemed to remember every word.

The doctor shook his head. "Don't read it to her anymore, Danvers. It's woefully out of date."

He didn't mention the other demons again. In fact, to Danvers' extreme relief, he seemed to warm to Elsie – although he would scan her face warily from time to time, whenever her fingers went wandering over the desk-top, examining some new everyday marvel.

He seemed just as anxious as Danvers to spare her any distress. When Gleeson came back with the cigars, and the smoke made her cough, he even got up to open a window.

The wind rushed in immediately, scattering the tendrils of smoke and lifting Elsie's hair back off her shoulders. It even knocked over a bottle of ink, which spilled over a sheaf of notepaper that had been lying on the desk-top.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, sir-" said Danvers, getting up to move the papers. But Dr Petrescu caught his wrist, and pointed wordlessly to the spilled ink.

The wind was directing its flow – was teasing out lines and loops and swirls in a most unnatural manner. When the breeze eventually dropped, the ink had formed itself into a mass of joined-up writing.

It said, give or take a few spaces: 'All hail the Queen'.

"What is it?" said Elsie, who had heard the clink of the bottle and Danvers' frantic apologies. "What happened?"

But there would have been no time to explain it, even if Danvers had known where to begin, because Inspector Hastings had suddenly taken Gleeson's place in the doorway, and was looking more than usually put out.

"I think I said no open windows," he grumbled. "And I'm sure I said no visitors. For someone who's just made his will, you're being a little careless, don't you think?"

Dr Petrescu waved his cigar – in what might have looked, to an outside observer, like a casual manner. "The privilege of a man who's just made his will, Inspector. I can be as careless as I like now."

Elsie, who had stood up and reached out both hands in her usual, unabashed way to try and find out what shape this new visitor was, suddenly froze.

"Oh," she said, withdrawing her hands uncertainly.

Danvers started to his feet, noticing that Dr Petrescu – with a sleight of hand that any card-sharp would have envied – had whipped the ink-soaked paper under the desk.

"Please excuse my sister, Inspector Hastings," he said, taking Elsie by the arm. "She's blind, and I – well, I'm afraid she gets rather curious. She likes to see things with her hands."

Inspector Hastings said nothing. He was staring at her with an expression that Danvers didn't entirely like. It was disgruntled, of course – as all the Inspector's expressions were – but it was also puzzled, as though he was trying to work out where he'd seen her before.

"How was the mayor?" asked Dr Petrecu. 

Danvers could have kissed him. The Inspector's face instantly crumpled up into a grimace, and he looked straight over Elsie's head to where the doctor sat, puffing innocently on his cigar.

"The mayor won't see me. And his clerks keep repeating that ridiculous story about a waste of city resources. They say I'm not even technically allowed to keep you here, but I've told them you're consulting on the case, and you're free to go whenever you like. The first part's not even a lie, because I still need you to formally identify Miss Syal's body."

Danvers winced and glanced in the doctor's direction. He had closed his eyes, but his expression was just as mild and civilized as ever.

"I will do anything I can, Inspector."

Suddenly, Danvers wanted to jump in front of him, and see off Jack, or Inspector Hastings, or anyone else who threatened to hurt his feelings. It was too much, after all the doctor had done – all he'd been through, all he'd lost – to force him to identify Miss Syal's body!

This was all Jack's fault. And yet what must Jack be feeling, right at this moment? Had he really loved Miss Syal as much as his ferocious craving for cigarettes had indicated? Enough to fly into a murderous rage when his feelings for her returned, and he realized what he'd done? And what must it be like to kill someone you loved? Especially a young lady who had needed you so desperately? He looked back at Elsie and shuddered.

"Hadn't you better be going, Mr Danvers?" said the doctor meaningfully.

"Oh – yes," said Danvers, squeezing Esie's arm and guiding her out of the office. "Please excuse us, Inspector. My sister's taking tea with an old friend at five."

Elsie allowed him to guide her through the doorway and down the corridor, but when they reached the front steps and the fresh air, she leaned towards him and whispered, "I know that man."

"I'm dreadfully afraid he knows you," said Danvers. "The doctor's right. We haven't disguised you well enough. We need to get home."

"I know him from before," said Elsie impatiently. "Before the stories, before my mother. From the time I can't remember."

"Then how can you remember him?"

"I don't know!" she protested. "I can't, really. I can't remember anything about him. I just know he's... something different."

Danvers sighed bitterly. "Yes, I'd consider than an accurate description. Now let's get you home."