What matters if it's real as long as it exists?" Xanthe Zeitstück belonged in London. Fate seemed to conspire to bring him from his Germanic origins and to a city every bit as shrouded and fabled as himself. He was the vagabond heir to the charismatic leader of London's Underground. He was the mysterious and witty suitor to a lover of fiction and victim of isolation. He found a home, in time, wherein he paid not a pence for board. He had a storybook life, one written expressly for his whims, and he was very much enthused with all of the little ironies and intricacies of his world. Yet not all was what it seemed. The discovery of an unknown body underneath the floorboards, the appearance of a dangerous angel of truth, the unexpected failure of his ticker. Xanthe's story had begun to unravel around him, perhaps certainly to an end. But as the light of truth reveals him, it begs the question: Had Xanthe's life ever truly began in the first place?