“Glim? Can you hear me?”

The fog thinned. The room took dim shape around me. The man and the boy. The need for a place of safety. Unca Joe. I was finding a balance.

I had to act normal, for long enough to get back to my den, to a private space where I could tackle this flood of data on my own terms. Best to lean toward the Glimmer half: talk and walk like the person I’d been moments before. The man looming anxiously over me would expect that. He’d also expect an explanation, would keep after me till he got one.

Sitting up would be a start. At least that effort was just mechanical. I unwound from my twisted retreat in the corner cushion and waited for the time-travel vertigo to pass. Would my voice sound different? Would Lizzy shine out through my eyes?

The man was . . . yes, called Daniel. How could I have forgotten?

He crouched in front of me, caught in a faint drift of light from above. “What’s going on with you?”

So earnest, so sympathetic. Of course, it was nothing personal. Just the face he presented to the world. I understood that now. When I raised my eyes to his, I felt her in there, Lizzy looking him over, judging. For Daniel, it must have been like peering through a window at a face inside. His head jerked, an almost invisible recoil.

“What?” he whispered.

Sure that I’d already said it, I tried again. “Sorry.”

“Okay, but what happened? You were . . .”

“I was . . .” So very far away.

The boy shushed us from the door. Who? Ah yes . . . Julian.

Daniel rose to sit beside me on the couch. I didn’t mind. Such distance between us now. Even an inch felt like a mile. “One moment you were pissed as hell, the next you were . . . well, really scaring me.”

“Sorry.” But that wouldn’t satisfy him. “I . . . had a . . . I remembered stuff.”

“What stuff?”

“Before. Memory quake.”

“That’s good, right? But . . . is it always that . . . rough?”

“This was . . . a big one.”

“Shut the fuck up!” Julian hissed.

Something going on outside. Even in my distraction, I registered the racket echoing off the concrete. Vehicles pulling up, big ones with motors that growled instead of whined, screeching tires, curses and exclamations.

“They’ve found him,” whispered Julian.

“Later, okay?” Daniel laid a finger on my knee, like he’d pin me to the spot if I tried to move. “It’s dark and the door’s well hidden. But for now, sit quiet. You good with that?”