It's true the Rings are gone, melted and burnt up in the crucible of the train as it smashed into the station. But there are other ways into the Wood if you knew where to look: grubby tradesman's doors instead of the grand front entrance, or a tunnel hacked through a hedge of thorns before the century curse's terms were met: secret ways and small, where the story's lord would not think to look or set a lock.

Susan crouches and stumbles her way through the roots, feeling her way through the dark earth with bloody fingers and feet, until she finds the drying echo of a pool that once held her heart entire, and knows, at last, that there is no more way home.