I was going to have to knock again. Yes, well, and the man holding the pinpoint had to let go of it, too, but even knowing it will all be over in a moment and you won’t feel a thing doesn’t make it any easier to say, “Now!” So I stood in front of the door, cursing the history department and the esteemed Dunworthy and the computer that had made the mistake and brought me here to this dark door with only a letter from a fictitious uncle that I trusted no more than I trusted the rest of them.

Even the old reliable Bodleian had let me down. The batch of research stuff I cross-ordered through Balliol and the main terminal is probably sitting in my room right now, a century out of reach. And Kivrin, who had already done her practicum and should have been bursting with advice, walked around as silent as a saint until I begged her to help me.

“Did you go to see Dunworthy?” she said.

“Yes. You want to know what priceless bit of information he had for me? ’silence and humility are the sacred burdens of the historian.’ He also told me I would love St. Paul’s. Golden gems from the Master. Unfortunately, what I need to know are the times and places of the bombs so one doesn’t fall on me.” I hopped down on the bed. “Any suggestions?”

“How good are you at memory retrieval?” she said.

I sat up. “I’m pretty good. You think I should assimilate?”

“There isn’t time for that,” she said. “I think you should put everything you can directly into long-term.”

“You mean endorphins?” I said.

The biggest problem with using memory-assistance drugs to put information into your long-term memory is that it never sits, even for a microsecond, in your short-term memory; and that makes retrieval complicated, not to mention unnerving. It gives you the most unsettling sense of deja vu to suddenly know something you’re positive you’ve never seen or heard before.