He leads me back the way he came, and through a door into a tiny room, and I know it is where Adeodatus died. I can smell pain here, in the straw mattress and the sweat that clings to the plaster. This is where he was when he called my name and I did not come. It is hot and dank and somewhere a woman is screaming, or maybe a child. Maybe it’s him, or me. I wonder if he heard me, all that time ago, heard the sound I made when they brought me the news. I wonder if he will hear me now, down the long tunnel of the Alkahest: