This is the reason being hunted sucks so much. If you know who’s chasing you and how, it’s not difficult to throw off pursuers. The problem is doing anything else. I couldn’t run my shop, or live in my flat, or hang out with Luna or Anne or Variam or Sonder, or follow any of my usual patterns, because if I did I could be traced. Most people can get away from hunters in the short term—it’s the long term that trips them up. Even if you’re being hunted, life goes on: you have a job to do, places to go, and a home to live in. All those things make you predictable, and sooner or later someone will use them to find you. I couldn’t keep hiding forever. Right now, though, I just needed somewhere to sleep.

The Royal National Hotel is next to Russell Square, a gigantic concrete-and-brick building that sprawls over an entire city block. It’s the largest hotel in London and feels like a small airport, right down to the people sitting on the carpets in the lounge with luggage piled around them. My mist cloak drew stares but I was too tired to care. The reception staff didn’t even blink; either they were too well trained or they’d seen so many weird guests that nothing fazed them anymore. Probably both.

My room was on the second floor with a view out over the flagpoles of the inner courtyard. I didn’t undress or even empty my pockets; I just dropped on the bed and closed my eyes. I was asleep inside two minutes.

Chapter 10

chapter 10

The plaza was filled with white light, doves pecking on the stones and roosting in the branches of the line of trees in the distance. I was sitting on the same bench, looking up at the glowing sky, and in the distance I could hear the rustle of wind. “You know,” I said, “each time I go back to Elsewhere it feels like I get here faster.”

“You do,” Shireen said from next to me. She was sitting on the bench; I didn’t know if she’d been there before I spoke, but I’d known she’d be there after.

“What’s changed?”

“Finding your way in Elsewhere is just like anything else,” Shireen said. “The more you do it, the easier it gets. Are you ready to go back?”

“One thing,” I said. “I’m seeing Rachel’s memories when I do this, aren’t I? What’s it like for her? Can she feel anything?”

“Maybe,” Shireen said. “I think to her it just feels like another dream.”

“Could she tell the difference? Find me while I’m there?”

Shireen hesitated. “I’m not sure.”

“You’re not very good at being reassuring, you know that?”

“Sorry.”