‘One moment,’ Myrnin said, and then the door was open and he was gone. They all looked at each other, waiting, and in another moment he was back again. Holding a very pissed-off pigeon. Claire was afraid what he intended to do with the poor thing, but he handed the bird to Eve to hold – she did it at arm’s length, grimacing – and he retrieved the gauze that he’d used to wrap Jesse’s hand and used the last of it to wrap the SIM card in a snug little packet, which he then tied around the pigeon’s scaly leg. ‘One does learn something from years of communicating by flying birds.’ He retrieved the pigeon and disappeared outside again, then came back in with a self-satisfied smile as he dusted his hands on his pants. Ewww, pigeon crap. ‘She’ll take it miles to get away from me.’

‘You do have that effect upon people, too,’ Oliver said. ‘Wash your hands.’

Myrnin gave him a narrow look, but Claire mouthed please, and he went to do it after all.

Then, without any more discussion, they headed out.

For the tunnels.

The MIT tunnel system was byzantine, and legendary; students used the wider ones for shelter and travel during the harsh Massachusetts winter, and the roof and tunnel hackers regularly explored and mapped in them. But even so, there were always new areas to be found – some long forgotten and sealed, like the famous bricked-up showers, or the tomb of the forgotten ladder. Claire checked the online maps through Michael’s borrowed phone, but didn’t find any sign of a tunnel beneath the library storage annex, which was at the far edge of campus … and that didn’t mean there weren’t any. Just that they had been cut off from the others.

In short, an ideal place to hide someone, because in her brief visits to the steam tunnels, Claire had quickly learnt that they were noisy. A few random shouts wouldn’t be drawing any particular attention, even if there was anyone around to hear.

‘Bother this nonsense,’ Oliver said, as they stood outside the darkened building; it was late, and little enough was stirring outside. ‘False caution breeds failure. Come.’ He headed straight for the doorway, which Claire was least inclined to do, but there really wasn’t much of a choice – follow, or don’t, and Oliver had the gravity trail of a born leader.

Jesse, however, had the brain of a tactician, and she pulled Pete and Michael and Shane aside. ‘Back door,’ she said. ‘Claire, you, me and your strange friend—’

‘Eve,’ they both said, simultaneously, and Eve held out her fist for a bump. ‘Or, you could call me Eve the Great, Mistress of All She Surveys. But Eve for short.’

Jesse smiled at that, a real smile, lively eyes crinkling. ‘Very pleased to meet you, Mistress Eve. Ah, you’d be the one who married the vampire, then?’

‘Am I that famous?’