I stayed silent for a little while then shook my head. “I can’t promise anything,” I said at last. “Not yet. I understand why you want this, but . . . Look, tell me something. How the hell did Rachel find me?”

“She’s always been able to,” Shireen said. “Didn’t you notice?”

I started to answer, then stopped. When I’d seen Rachel last year at the British Museum I’d been in the shadows wearing my mist cloak. Rachel’s two companions, Cinder and Khazad, hadn’t noticed a thing . . . but Rachel had. She hadn’t found me but it had been close, and every time since then that I’d spied on her the same thing had happened. “Why?” I said.

“Do you remember the first time you went to Elsewhere?” Shireen said. “The very first time?”

“Yeah.” It had been Richard who’d shown us how to do it. The four of us had travelled there together—me, Shireen, Tobruk, and Rachel. It had been a memorable trip.

“When you go to Elsewhere with another person, it leaves a connection,” Shireen said. “I think when Rachel Harvested me something happened that strengthened that somehow. She can sense you and you can sense her.”

“I’m not sure I can.”

“Last autumn, when you were working for Belthas,” Shireen said. “You found Rachel and Cinder just by walking around London. Didn’t you ever wonder why that worked?”

I hadn’t, not until Shireen mentioned it. “So she can find me through my mist cloak?”

“The cloak makes it harder,” Shireen said. “I think the reason she could do it was that you were actually in her memories. It intensified the connection, at least for a little while. She must have traced the link.”

“Then don’t take this personally,” I said, “but I’m never doing anything like that again.”

“I understand.”

We stood in silence for a while, listening to the buzz of conversation, then I shook my head, pulling my thoughts back to the present. “So all of this was for nothing. Catherine was dead all along and there’s nothing that’ll stop Will from coming after me.”

“You know the truth now.”

“And you couldn’t have just told me?” I looked at Shireen. “You knew what had happened to Catherine. You could have told me I was wasting my time.”

“You think learning how I died is a waste of time?” Shireen said quietly. She didn’t raise her voice, but her eyes sparked and something in them made me want to draw back. “You don’t think what happens to me and Rachel is important? I’ve helped you every time you’ve needed it. You think that’s all I’m here for, doing you favours and then disappearing when you don’t need me? I might be just a shadow but I’m not your slave. You don’t have the right to tell me what to do.”