“Yeah, all right,” said Jake. “There’s a fair. And it’s mostly run by travelers who do that in the summer but help with the harvest and stuff. We know them all, more or less . . . It’s grand.”

“Well . . . wait, sorry, do I have to work at it?”

“Oh! No. Nobody’s fallen off the Ferris wheel for at least a year.”

Lissa wasn’t sure whether he was joking.

“I’m kidding. The St. John’s Ambulance does it. No, I was just telling you in case you wanted to go.”

Lissa smiled to herself. She did love fairs: the bad boys spinning the waltzers, the clashing scents of popcorn and hot dogs and candy floss, the sense of danger as night drew in. She used to go with her girlfriends, slipping out of school, turning up their skirts. She hadn’t been in a very long time, as if it had been banned, left behind with becoming a responsible grown-up and a health care professional.

“Um, I’m still here,” said Jake, coloring. He couldn’t believe this was going quite as badly as it was. Normally a cheeky wink and a story or two about a particularly daring and possibly slightly exaggerated ambulance callout and it was a done deal, more or less, or if it wasn’t, well, thank you, next, plenty more fish in the sea.

“Thanks for telling me,” said Lissa, slipping out of her reverie. “Okay, well, good to know it’s there.”

Jake put his hand on the back of his neck. “Actually, I was asking if you wanted to go. With me.”

Lissa’s eyebrows shot up. It was the oddest thing; another side effect, she supposed. She hadn’t been thinking about boys at all.

Of course she’d had the same dating-in-London problems as every other girl she knew, competing for decent men with approximately infinity other people. And then there was Ezra. The ghoster. She had sent him one short, consoling letter about Kai, hoping against hope he didn’t think it was another ploy to get his attention. She hadn’t expected to hear back from him, and she hadn’t. But to be ghosted had been so painful. The internet was just such a tough place to meet men.

So she was extremely surprised and jolted to be “asked out”—London men never asked you out. You hung with them or you met via the internet. They didn’t just walk up to you in broad daylight and . . .

Jake put his hands up as if he were reading her mind. He’d gone puce.

“Sorry!” he said. “Didn’t mean to frighten you! It’s all right, don’t panic, just a thought, didn’t want to trouble you.”

And before she could rearrange her face into something vaguely appropriate, he had gone.