Childermass' eyes widen, and he looks up from the pamphlet: not outright gaping, at least, but his lips are parted as though words have stalled on their way across his tongue. He was trying to remember which of the Aureate magicians had mentioned Jeanne d'Arc in his writings - had it been Watershippe? He'd certainly been of the correct era: A False Wood Withering had been published in 1444. He was standing here with a woman who had been alive for the last gasps of English magic. It occurred to him that in all of Norrell's books he had skimmed in his years of service, he hadn't seen any mention that the King's Roads could cross time as well as realms: but here was inscrutable proof.

"My lady, I am not certain how to put this delicately, but we both seem to be apart from our time. I know of you - for me, the year should be 1817."