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      Somewhere in London 2013

      KINGSLEY EDGE WAS playing God tonight. He hoped the real God, if He did exist, wouldn’t mind.

      He’d told his driver to let him out a few blocks before his destination. Warm air, a late-April rain and a little English magic had sent a soft white fog twisting and flicking its tail down winding streets, and Kingsley wanted to enjoy it. He wore a long coat and carried a leather weekender bag over his shoulder. It was late, and although the city was still awake, it kept its voice down. The only sounds around him came from the soles of his shoes echoing against the wet and shining pavement and the distant murmur of city traffic.

      When he arrived at the door he knocked without hesitation.

      After a pause, it opened.

      They stared at each other a full five seconds before one of them spoke. Kingsley took it upon himself to break the silence.

      “I’m the last person you were expecting to see again, oui?” Kingsley asked.

      He expected the shock and he expected the silence, but he didn’t expect what happened next.

      He didn’t expect Grace Easton to step onto the porch in her soft gray robe and bare feet and wrap him in her arms.

      “If I’d known this is how the Welsh say ‘hello,’ I would have visited sooner,” Kingsley said. Grace pulled back from the embrace and smiled at him, her bright turquoise eyes gleaming.

      “You’re always welcome here.” Grace’s words were tender, her accent light and musical. She took his arm and ushered him into the house. “Always.”

      Always...a lovely word. He never used to believe in words like always, like forever, like everything. Now at forty-eight he’d lived long enough he could see both ends of his life. Always. There might be something to it after all.

      “Zachary’s asleep,” Grace said in a whisper as she took his coat, hung it up, and guided him into a cozy living room. “He gets up at five every morning, so he goes to bed at a reasonable hour. I prefer the unreasonable hours myself.”

      “You’re the night owl?”

      “It works for us,” she said with a smile. “I can get work done after Zachary and Fionn fall asleep. Would you like tea? I can put the kettle on. Or something stronger?”

      “I brought my own something stronger,” he said.

      He