Vanessa Len

Joan stumbled back down Kensington High Street and then Earl’s Court Road.

Aaron pointed at the ceiling. There was a cloudlike brown stain on it. ‘What’s that?’

‘A fresco,’ Joan said.

‘This is Buckingham Palace,’ Joan said.

‘This is a festering hole of misery and petty theft,’ Aaron corrected her.

Joan took a breath. She was breathing air from another time. She was standing with people from another time.

‘I think this is a dog vest,’ she said to Ruth through the curtain.

‘No?’ Ying said musingly. ‘Olivers see. Hunts hide. Nowaks live. Patels bind. Portellis open. Hath

aways leash. Nightingales take. Mtawalis keep. Argents sway. Alis seal. Griffiths
reveal. But only the Lius remember

They turned out to be tiny marzipan lions, exquisitely detailed. They were too beautiful to eat. Joan pocketed them.

The palace chapel, she thought wonderingly. King Henry had married Anne Boleyn here.

How does the Hunt power work?’ she asked. ‘I used to think that we put objects somewhere else. But that isn’t right, is it?’

‘No,’ Ruth said slowly. ‘It’s more like we place objects somewhen else.’