Through winding alleys of stone and thought, you may come across a sleeping place. Cut off from the Real City that whirs around outside it, with all its mess and bustle and struggle. The struggles here are quieter, interior, contained. That doesn’t mean they don’t sometimes lick upwards in tongues of flame. They do.

If you go close to one of the stranger parts of the city, places with a logic different to the rest – the old Clock Tower, say, or a wrong turn in the Botanic Gardens – you may catch a glimpse of it. A forest, of arching trees, golden light streaming through the tangle of green onto you.

In the garden – an idyllic place, yes, but not without its sorrows – there is the woman who’s imagined it all into being. Titania, with her long red hair, and her gaze searching for the horizon, though the trees cover it. She might be seen taking tea with she two of the friends lost, long ago. One of them, with the dark hair and the sad smile, comes more frequently than the other, who still prefers solitude in her own tower, most of the time.

The clock tower moves again these days, forwards, hopeful. Something powerful, lying forgotten at the city’s heart, has been woken after a three-decade-long slumber. Not just the people in the dream; indeed, they don’t think they’ll have much part in wherever this awoken thing goes. But they are alert to it. Sitting a vigil for it together, on those nights when they gather for tea. Bearing witness, to a reality that seems to be dreaming again.