Ahead now, at the front edge of the forward engine, I see the familiar quiescent shape of Akuji, sitting perfectly still, her back turned to us. Next to her, Vidhan. He’s standing, shouting into the wind. Malik throws up his arms and lets go a whoop.

Despite myself, I can’t help grinning. I lift my arms, like Malik and Vidhan, and they see me and we howl at the sky. I’m feeling reckless now. Elated.

I start laughing. An uncontrollable, manic laugh.

Here I am, freight-surfing across an England that isn’t England. And so what? So what if Reapers are hunting us? So what?

Malik grins at me, hair flown back. Then he does something so unexpected it stuns me. He kisses me.

A shock goes through my body.

Malik laughs. The train pulls us hard into a bend and the boxcar tilts. We hammer over the tracks and, in my bones, I feel every dent in the metal and, like a silver thread woven through every bump, is a single unstoppable image—Malik’s lips on mine.

We descend from the roof when the bitter cold arrives. A pale moon floats and the open side of the empty boxcar frames a night sky cloudy with stars. Akuji and Vidhan stake out claims in two corners of the space and fall asleep, deep under their ponchos. Malik and I, untired, sit with our legs out straight and our backs to the cold metal wall and rock with the train’s motion.

My blood zings. I stare into the restless night, into the vastness of space, and all I can think about is that kiss—unprovoked and so sudden. How would Bea have reacted? She would’ve made conversation. She would’ve kept it light and cool. She’d know how to flirt, to make him kiss her again.

Think of something, Ana. C’mon.

“D’you know how many stars there are in the galaxy?” I blurt.

Nice. Light and breezy. Epic.

Malik looks at me. “Which galaxy?”

Right. Good point. “Let’s just say, ours. Sol.”

He shrugs. “No idea.”

“Over two hundred billion. I Googled it. And now there’s not just one, and not two, but seven universes and who knows how many billion stars in each.”

“I suppose that’s right.”

“Right. Well, doesn’t that make you feel small? Like a speck of dust.”

“No.”

Perfect. You’re blowing this, Moon. The train rocks. I wrack my brain for something meaningful to say. Something personal. “I feel like that sometimes. Like a speck of dust. Just…floating. And now this. All this Falling. It’s mad.”

“It’s not that mad, when you think about it. Falling from one world to another. It happens to us all, Pathfinder or not, at least once in our lives.”

“Oh yeah? When?”