Folding the shirt, Seb tucked it into his bag, his fingers leaving it reluctantly. The photo he studied for a moment, drinking in the girl’s delicately pointed features, her smile and green eyes. He shook his head in wonder as he touched the upturned face. So this was what she looked like; he’d yearned to know for most of his life. So beautiful, even as a child. Was she with her human boyfriend for the same reason he’d been tempted by Lucy – just because the loneliness had become too much, and there was no one else? Maybe this girl had always felt alone too, the same way he had.

Seb tucked the photo into the pocket of his jeans, wanting to keep it close. Mexico City held twenty million people, but he’d find her, somehow. They had to meet, had to be together. The certainty of it was like a heartbeat drumming through him. No other option was possible – it was meant to be.

She had dreamed of him.

Chapter Five

THE FIRST THING I NOTICED about Mexico City was the traffic. It was endless, chaotic: cars, taxis, other motorcycles. Horns blaring; red lights being run; hardly any attention paid to the division lines at all, except to see how blatantly you could ignore them. When it stopped for even a second, shouting sellers appeared in the street, striding past with cigarettes and candy. I kept my hands on Alex’s waist as he wove us deftly in and out of it all, swerving and putting on the brakes as people tried to blindside us.

The second thing that hit me was the smell – a dizzying cocktail of exhaust fumes, the spices from sidewalk food vendors, dust from construction projects. And the sound: jackhammers, rock music, brakes squealing in protest. I couldn’t stop staring, taking it all in. As Alex and I made our way towards the centre of the city, I saw medieval buildings jostling for space beside modern glass structures and art deco ones from the thirties; others that were abandoned, with graffiti-ridden boards covering the windows. I blinked as I noticed something else – a lot of the buildings seemed slightly skewed, as if you were viewing them after a drunken night out. The whole place looked like the aftermath of a giant party.

And there were the angels, of course.