It’s a pretentious thing to say. But Thora has to admit that’s exactly how this feels: a moment taken out of time, with no beginning or end.

“So we have to commemorate this, right?” Santi says.

Thora blinks. “What do you mean?”

He reaches into his jacket and brings out something made of dark wood. It’s only when he unfolds the tapered steel blade that Thora realizes it’s a knife.

She stares. “Are you suggesting some kind of blood ceremony?”

“No! Wow, you Czech-Icelandic-British people are so intense.”

Thora throws her head back in a laugh. “Congratulations on remembering all the nationalities. Most people have to be told a hundred times before they get it right.”

He darts her a look. “I pay attention.”

She holds out her hand for the knife. He gives it to her, and she examines it, turning the blade to the light. “Wow. You could stab someone to death with this.”

“Why is that the first place your mind goes?” Santi shakes his head. “It was my grandfather’s.”

Thora looks at him suspiciously. “Why do you have a knife if you don’t want to stab anyone?”

“Why do you have a lighter if you don’t smoke?”

Thora shrugs. “You never know when you might need to set something on fire.”

“And you never know when you might need to carve something into a wall.” He takes the knife back from her and goes to one of the pillars between the arches.

She watches over his shoulder as he cuts into the stone. “Santiago López Romero,” she reads.

He hands the knife to her. “I don’t know how to spell your name.” He leans over her shoulder to watch her work. “I hate to tell you, but that’s not a letter.”

She brushes the brick dust off the Þ that begins her first name. “Yes it is. It’s a thorn. We still use it in Icelandic. It used to be in the English alphabet too.”

“So what you’re saying is, I really didn’t know how to spell it.”

Their two names sit stark on the wall: no ampersand, no heart, nothing but shared space holding them together. That’s right, Thora decides. “I’m glad I left the party,” she tells him.

“Of course,” Santi says. “I mean, this was fate, right?”

Thora blinks. “’Scuse me?”

“Fate. Us meeting each other. Climbing the tower.”

She laughs. “Really? You’re a determinist? Free will is an illusion, the universe is a ball rolling down a hill, et cetera?”

He shakes his head. “I’m not talking about determinism. I’m talking about fate.”

“What’s the difference?”

He sits down again on the edge of the platform. “Determinism means everything’s meaningless but we can’t change it. Fate means there’s a plan that God is working through us.”