It came back to her. She could fumble her way around the base of the cliffs. Sometimes she had to cling on to the rocks as the waves rushed up and tried to suck her down. From cold, she went to freezing numb, but she carried on.

‘Crows? Crows, you bastard. Come out.’ She’d lost her falcon’s sight when she’d lost her falconhood.

A wave drew down strongly behind her, and returned twice as hard. She gasped as the wall of green water hit her, and gasped again as her fingers started to tear free.

A hand came down and lifted her easily out of the surf.

‘Climb higher,’ said Crows. ‘There is a ledge.’

He half-carried her up, and set her down before shrugging off his sea-drenched cloak and wrapping her in it.

‘How did you find me? Where are your clothes?’

‘You stole my map,’ she said, drawing the edges of the cloak around her as tight as she could.

‘And you lied about the portal.’ The whites of his eyes and the white of his teeth as he hissed out his words were all she could see.

‘I did not. It was here.’

‘It is not here now, Mary, and portals do not vanish. They exist in both worlds: that is what gives them power.’

‘This one disappeared. It just went.’

Crows took her by the shoulders and shook her. ‘They do not vanish,’ he repeated. ‘Where is it, really?’

‘It’s here. Here.’ She shook herself free and looked around. There was the headland, and the line of broken rock leading to the stack. ‘There. We stepped out into the sea right there.’

He left her and went to where she pointed, and she followed, still trying to hold his black cloak around her.

‘There is nothing here,’ he shouted over the boom of the waves.

‘It disappeared. It looked like the entrance to an Underground station, and then it disappeared, even as I was looking at it. What does it mean, Crows? Why did it go?’

Crows slapped at the rock with his hands and gave a grunt of frustration. The cliff was blank: no door, no brickwork, no faded sign. The sea swallowed up their feet, regurgitated them again.

‘The portal I came through is still there, though it is closed to me. I have seen other portals too. I have never heard of one just vanishing before.’

‘But it was here. Just … here.’ She scrubbed the spray from her face. ‘I thought they all did that, after you pass through. Fade away until they’re opened again.’

‘No. And the power that comes from them connects with other portals. With this one dead, the lines will have shifted.’ He hit the rock again, just to make sure. ‘Are you telling me the truth, Mary? Was the portal really here?’