Note: This is gonna be a multi-parter, if the spirits are willing. (Reader, I have so many chapters almost finished. It's driving me crazy, it really is.)

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Deryn arranges the scarf around his neck, looping it into a tidy knot. It's a needless gesture – he is perfectly capable of doing it himself – but one that is kindly meant, and Alek appreciates it.

"Thank you," he says softly, reaching up to briefly rest one hand over hers, trapping it against his chest.

She gives him a smile, then steps back and tugs her own scarf into place, wrapping it once and carelessly flicking the loose end over her shoulder. Then she grabs her cane and jams a woolen flat cap onto her head, saying, "Don't go forgetting your hat, your princeliness; it's barking nasty out there this morning."

"There is no pleasant weather in this country," Count Volger says, joining them where they stand in the Barlows' foyer.

Despite his heavy mood, Alek's mouth twitches in amusement. Volger makes a new disparaging comment about Britain every day – and, sometimes, more frequently. "It does snow in Austria as well, Count."

"Fah," Volger says, succinct. He is carrying his gloves and hat, and impatiently drums one finger against the brim. "Have you finished grooming him, girl? We shall be late."

Deryn scowls. "Aye, if you're finally done mucking about with breakfast."

While they bicker, Alek collects Bovril, who has been patiently sitting on a side table throughout the process of pulling on coats, scarves, and gloves. He opens his coat and jacket just far enough to allow the loris to creep inside, then buttons it up snugly. It is cold outside, and he doesn't want Bovril to take ill.

Bovril settles itself, its tiny claws dragging at Alek's shirtfront as it gets comfortable. It makes a lulling hmm that Alek also appreciates for the kindness that it is.

"Enough," Alek tells his tutor and his friend. "This isn't the day for it."

They subside, and, pleased to have wrought peace in this small kingdom, Alek begins towards the door. Behind him, Volger says, "Your hat, Aleksandar."

"Right," Alek says, mouth twitching again. He will have two minders now, it seems.

The hat was an excellent suggestion, it turns out. Snow swirls down in fat wet flakes, ghostlike in the glow from the streetlights, and the cold cuts into every exposed inch of skin.

Alek experienced many frigid winters in Konopischt, but there is something about being in a city that makes it infinitely more miserable. "God's wounds," he says, hunching his shoulders and pushing his hands into his pockets.

"It'll be lovely by the time the sun's up," Deryn says. She tilts her head back and sticks out her tongue, trying to catch snowflakes. Grinning. "White rooftops everywhere – like a fairytale city, aye?"

"A city six inches deep in mud by tomorrow," Volger says. "Your Highness, the carriage -?"

"Carriage" is perhaps too grand a word for it. It's a weatherbeaten taxi, drawn by one of those large, dumb, fabricated beasts that seem to be a mixture of many large, dumb, natural beasts. Regardless of its life threads, it looks not at all perturbed by the cold or the wet.

Neither does the driver, sitting hunched atop the box, fixing a pipe under the shelter of his hat. The flare of a match casts the man's face in stark crags and shadows. He nods at them and mumbles something that may or may not be a greeting.

There's no reason to stand aside and hold a taxi door open for Dylan Sharp, but Alek does anyway. She gives him a smirk as she clambers inside. He follows her, and settles into the seat across from her. Volger comes up last, giving directions to the driver as he does.

The door has barely closed before the driver is whipping up the beastie and the taxi is lurching forward. Alek leans sideways so that he can peer through the small, weather-grimed window at the dark, pre-dawn streets.

London. His new home.

He closes his eyes. So much has happened since the night of 28th June – so much has changed – sometimes it seems as though the first sixteen years of his life were a dream.

And sometimes it feels as though he'll awaken any moment and find that that the war, the Leviathan, and Deryn Sharp were all merely imagination.

A booted foot nudges his. He opens his eyes and looks at her.

"Don't fall asleep now, you daft prince," she says. A wry smile curves her mouth. "We've still a whole service to sit through."

"I'm not tired," he says. Bovril shifts inside his coat, peeking its nose out from behind the scarf, then shivering and curling close again. "Merely thinking."

Volger harrumphs, but holds his comments to himself.

Alek resumes looking out the window. Now, however, he makes a point of nudging Deryn's foot with his, every once and a while. She always nudges back.

They reach their destination soon enough, given the weather, although they're obliged by the traffic to stop some distance away from the doors. Volger pays the taxi driver while Alek and Deryn wait on the sidewalk. She grimaces and leans on her cane, shifting the weight from her bad knee.

"Is your knee hurting?" he asks.

She shakes her head, and the grimace disappears behind a quick, blue-eyed grin. "Not a squick."

For a moment he is irrationally angry with her - wants to grab her by the arm and tell her Stop pretending, stop being the tough airman, I know it hurts!

Just as quickly, the feeling disappears, leaving guilt in its wake. He isn't, he knows, angry with her.

He pushes his hands into his coat pockets and studies the way his breath plumes in the frigid, snow-blown air. The light is strengthening, and there are more people arriving all the time.

Volger rejoins them with a curt, "Well, Your Highness?"

Alek looks at the red-and-white brick walls and the soaring bell tower of Westminster Cathedral. At the small crowd climbing the steps, solemn and festive all at once on this early Christmas morning, as they come to hear the Dawn Mass.

"I'm ready," he says. But he wonders if that isn't a lie.