That night, you stand outside your shelter, looking out at the night sky. In the Old Days, the stars used to be almost invisible, with so much air and light pollution. Now they're clearer, but it seems that there are a lot less than there used to be. Even the stars are dying out.
Your gaze is drawn to a cluster of stars directly above you. They seem a lot brighter than the rest, arranged in an impossibly perfect circle. You wonder if they're not stars at all, but space junk - a drifting satellite launched years ago, maybe. You doubt it, though - they're not uniform enough to be satellites, with one reddish star, another a jade green, yet another a bright sky blue. They're all the same size, and all in the same perfect circle. Squinting to get a better view, you count them. Twelve. And one smaller, but brighter one in the middle. Thirteen.
Suddenly, your mind starts working in hyperdrive. Twelve stars, around another, brighter star. The Angels and the King. Is this constellation linked to the legends? You need to find out what it's called, but you'll have to wait till the morning. Tonight, you need to sleep.
You curl up on the sofa-bed after blocking the hole in the roof with a piece of balled-up paper. It isn't much, but it'll do for now. You try your best to sleep, but the experiences of the day keep running through your head - meeting Rhiannon, embarassing yourself, seeing the constellation. What's it called? you ask yourself fiercely. What's it called? As you finally drift into slumber, a dream dances behind your eyelids.
You're standing in a high-roofed hall, almost like a church, with tall, curving pillars and narrow stained-glass windows. The images on the windows show tall, graceful angels. There are twelve, you note. You wander to the nearest picture - an angel clad in long, flowing robes with gold patterns painted onto them. With sparkling gilded wings and long, pale curls, he could pass for any old angel off a Old Days Christmas card - robins and mistletoe? really? - but a quick look at this angel's face sets him in a class apart. This angel has sharp cheekbones and a straight, regal nose, and its mouth is set in a grim line. The truly supernatural part of this face is the eyes. Gilded, and glowing with an unearthly light - the stained glass is so realistic, it really looks like light is shining through the glass and casting a golden glow over your face.
As you take in the intricacy of the designs on the robes, the scroll in the angel's hand - carefully gilded with swirling patterns and words in a language you don't understand - unfurls, reaching the bright green grass, which the angel's feet don't quite touch, and revealing even more strange words and diagrams - a twelve-pointed star, a circle with a crown in the centre, and a stylized angel sketch, with two triangular wings and a round halo floating above it. You stare. You must be imagining it! But no - you're sure the scroll was rolled up - wasn't there a ribbon around it? You scrutinize the rest of the window, trying to see what else has changed. As you reach towards the angel's face, wanting to touch it, wanting to find if it's real, the angel blinks, then smiles wryly, lifting the hand not holding the scroll to give you a wave.
You stare, paralyzed, as the angel rolls the scroll back up again, then focuses on something behind you. You turn around, dreading what you'll see.
