"The last year or so has been very different. Circumstances brought me an apprentice, the first since-- well, the first in more than sixty years. He's reconnected me with the outside world, brought new people into my life, reminded me of existing friendships I'd let wane." He speaks of Peter with an aching fondness. "Molly's life has been tremendously enriched by him as well."

Nightingale lapses into silence for a long time, stirring sugar into his tea far past the point that any further mixing could be achieved. "The day before I arrived here, we had suffered a tremendous betrayal from someone important to us all. The very moment I arrived here, I was escorting a dangerous dark practitioner into safe confinement. Safe confinement at my workplace, which is also my home. I led her directly into the place in which Molly and Peter should be safest and then vanished before she could be secured."