Here, in time, Suzanna would rediscover the Old Science, and with it heal ancient breaches. Here too, in some unimaginable year, Cal would go to live in a house on the borders of the Gyre, to which one day a young man would come whose history he knew. It was all ahead, all they'd dreamed together, all waiting to be born.
Even at that moment, in sleeping cities across the Isle, the refugees were waking and rising from their pillows, and throwing open the doors and windows, despite the cold, to meet the news the night was bringing them: that what could be imagined need never be lost. That even here, in the Kingdom, rapture might find a home.
After tonight there would be only one world, to live in and to dream; and Wonderland would never be more than a step away, a thought away.
Together Cal, Suzanna and Gluck left the house and went walking in that magic night. Ahead, there were such sights unfolding: friends and places
they'd feared gone forever coming to greet them, eager for shared rapture.
There was time for all their miracles now. For ghosts and transformations; for passion and ambiguity; for noon-day visions and midnight glory. Time in abundance.
For nothing ever begins.
And this story, having no beginning, will have no end.