‘Please, Elliot. I’m begging you,’ Josie pleaded in his ear. ‘Don’t send me back to my body. Don’t send me back to my prison. Don’t send us both back to sadness. You love me better than that.’

Elliot threw his arms in the air. What was he supposed to do? Everything he’d wanted was in his grasp. He’d wanted to save his mum. He’d wanted any chance to get her back. He’d wanted her so badly, he’d put the whole world in danger. He’d wanted this moment for as long as he could remember.

In fact, Elliot suddenly realized, he’d wanted her back so much, he hadn’t stopped to consider one thing:

Maybe it wasn’t what his mum wanted at all.

‘Do you remember when we talked before, when the wishing pearl made me well for those seven minutes?’ Josie whispered.

Elliot nodded.

‘I never got to finish what I wanted to say,’ Josie continued. ‘It was this: I wanted to tell you that when the time came, you had to promise me that you were going to let me go. That you would carry on with your life. That you would treasure what we had, then go on to make your own life full of celebration. I’ve had the most wonderful four decades, filled with more love and laughter than most people know in a thousand lifetimes. I’ve had my time and I don’t regret a single second of it. But now, my darling, it’s yours.’

Her words wrapped themselves around Elliot’s heart and held it tight. He closed his eyes and allowed the simple truth to flow up from the core of his being – the fear that had governed his every thought and deed since he realized his mother was seriously unwell:

‘I . . . I can’t live without you.’

‘You already have,’ Josie soothed. ‘You’ve been living without me ever since my illness claimed me. Now you just have to let me go.’

Elliot felt tears spill freely down his face. He would do anything for his mum. But how could he do this?

‘We don’t have long,’ Josie said as the light faded another degree. ‘Please know you are not alone, Elly. You have your father.’

‘That idiot?’ Elliot said instinctively, before Nyx’s last trick flooded into his mind. Of course – that wasn’t his real father. His real dad was still out there. But would he be any better? He was a stranger. Elliot didn’t know anything about him.

‘Your father loves you more than anything in this world,’ Josie said, answering his thought. ‘He made a terrible mistake, but all he wants is to be the father that you deserve. And he will be, I promise you.’

‘Where is he?’ Elliot asked softly.