Darragh was dreaming, which was peculiar because he couldn't even remember the last time he'd done that. In fact, it was more memory than dream, a memory he thought he'd lost long ago. Then again, it was always the worst memories that stayed with you the longest.
In the dream, he was five years old - so young and only just beginning to shed his innocence like dead skin. Innocence: useless, irritating, something one was better off without. The year was 1671 and he was sitting in a gutter in London's filthy east end.
Darragh raised his head and peered around the densely packed cobblestone street on which he sat. The sun had just set, and the street was beginning to come alive. Alive in the same way a wounded insect writhes on the ground just before it dies. The street was a buzzing hive of
