Gwen arrived at the station late, her red hair falling out of its pins, a smudge of grease on her cheek, close to tears with vexation, because she could see at at glance that the station waiting room was empty. All the London evacuee children had already found homes, then.

"I'm so sorry," she told Mrs. Bickerstaff, the organizer. "The car broke down, and-"

"No need to apologize, Mrs. Pendragon." Mrs. Bickerstaff's voice was warm, her smile kind, and as always Gwen felt like a schoolgirl standing before an indulgent headmistress. "There's still one left."

Gwen looked around the waiting room, as if the child might be hiding under a chair, and Mrs. Bickerstaff laughed. "No, he's waiting on the platform, dearie. He insisted."

And so Gwen followed Mrs. Bickerstaff onto the platform to see this boy who insisted on waiting in the cold.

He was perhaps eleven years old, a thin sharp-faced boy with straight heavy dark hair and knees red with cold. He looked up when the door opened, and Gwen had the brief impression of dark wary eyes, like a stray dog's.

"Didn't I tell you someone would come, Medraut?" Mrs. Bickerstaff said.

The dark eyes flashed toward her. Flatly, offended, he said, "I knew someone would come."

Mrs. Bickerstaff laughed. "This is Mrs. Pendragon, dearie," she told the boy called Medraut, and he got to his feet and came over and held out his hand.

"How do you do, Mrs. Pendragon?"

Gwen shook his cold hand. "Very well, thank you - Medraut, is it?"

Medraut nodded. He looked like he wasn't going to say anything, and then his mouth opened as if he might - and then Mrs. Bickerstaff put an arm round his shoulders, and his whole body stiffened and his mouth clamped shut.

"Ah, he's a quiet one, our Medraut," Mrs. Bickerstaff said, squeezing her arm round him. Medraut's shoulders drew in, hunched and taut. "You'll like him, Mrs. Pendragon. He'll be no trouble at all."