“Mortimer! Mortimer! Oh, please tell me you can hear me.”
“Is that an angel?”
“Not quite,” replied Grace to the biggest exhalation of air Headlock thought he had ever heard a human expel. “I thought I had lost you.”
“I do not die so easily.”
“So I gather.”
“How long have I been out?” Headlock asked, rubbing at a prizewinning bump on his forehead.
“Long enough,” replied Grace only just visible in the wan light.
“I take it from your chattering teeth that it is still a freezing maelstrom outside.”
“Very, I’m afraid. Do you yourself not feel the chill?”
“I feel…”
Grace waited for the rest of the sentence, but Headlock was unforthcoming. “And?” she eventually managed.
“I feel nothing. For a moment, I wasn’t quite sure, but that sums it up nicely. I feel absolutely nothing: not my fin
