Chapters 23-25 Summary

Chapter 23

Ned arrives in the lecture room that served as the makeshift time travel lab in 2018. He hides behind the curtains that conceal the primitive net as a young woman lets herself into the lab. The woman seems familiar to Ned. A youthful Mr. Dunworthy arrives. From their conversation Ned figures out that the woman is Elizabeth Bittner. She and Mr. Dunworthy discuss the bleak fate of Coventry Cathedral, which has just been denied protection as a landmark by the Appropriations Committee. They begin a test on the net, and it is activated with Ned inside.

Ned jumps to Blackwell's bookstore in Oxford, in winter. He overhears three women discussing the latest Agatha Christie novel. The net shimmers and Ned finds himself in a pitch black, stone stairwell. Ned decides to wait where he is rather than explore the stair. He...