‘We saw Patriots searching through houses all across town on our way here,’ Chloe said to me, her voice full of alarm. ‘I can’t think of any reason why, unless Wallace told them about the secret transfer stage.’

Or they’re looking for Casey. But wherever Casey was, I felt sure, his transfer stage would be also. And if the Patriots found either him or the stage before we did, then any hope we had of obtaining it for our own use would be gone forever.

I glanced surreptitiously towards the knot of Patriot agents still standing nearby and wondered if any of Greenbrooke’s men had the skill to hunt down a Pathfinder with years of experience in traversing multiple hostile environments. Assuming, that is, Casey hadn’t already fled to some other alternate, using whatever transfer coordinates he had filched from Bramnik’s stolen briefcase. And if Rozalia was right about the Patriots wanting to take control of the island, we had to move fast.

To be back on some world so close to my own I could hardly tell the difference . . . it was so near that I could almost taste it.

But as soon as the thought passed through my head, I felt a spasm of guilt. Wallace had told my predecessor that Casey was planning some act of genocide against the Authority. It was a threat, I now knew, that he might well be capable of carrying out. Could I really flee to some other world, and leave the billions who presumably lived on the Authority’s alternate to die at Casey’s hands?

I pressed the heel of one hand against my forehead, feeling the blood throb through my skull. Telling any of this to the Patriots would be tantamount to suicide, that much was clear – assuming they even listened to us. And that left only myself, and my fellow Pathfinders, to do what had to be done and find Casey first.

Both Winifred and Selwyn were regarding us with suspicion. ‘What’s been going on with you three, exactly?’ Winifred demanded. ‘What’s all this about a secret transfer stage?’

‘It’s a long story,’ Rozalia replied. ‘And we’re going to tell you and everyone else about it first real chance we get.’

I took a deep, steadying breath. ‘Selwyn, do you think there’s any way we’d be able to get back inside the base hospital to talk to Wallace ourselves? Are the Patriots likely to have him under guard or anything like that?’

Selwyn rubbed at his jaw. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Greenbrooke’s got pretty much every last one of his agents running all over town. If there is anyone guarding him, I’m guessing that it’ll more than likely be just the one guy. But I’d better warn you, I’m not exaggerating when I say how bad Wallace is. I’m not placing any bets on him surviving the morning.’