“How many more?” Malik says, shaking his head and staring out at the ceaseless rain. He’s asking himself, but I answer regardless.

“Just one,” I say.

Malik looks up at me. His hair is wild. His eyes are wet and darker somehow. More beautiful. “You’ve changed,” he says quietly.

“In a good way, or bad way?” I whisper back.

He forces himself to smile. “That was some riding back there.”

“Trophies, remember? Lessons paid off.” And before he can protest, I lean across the space and snap open his harness.

“The hell are you doing?” he says.

“The Wraith,” I tell him, dragging out the vial from the chain on my neck. “It can only be me from here, Malik. We both know that.”

I can’t believe I’m saying those words. Especially when going alone feels like such an obviously bad idea. In films, whenever the good guys separate, Bea and I scream at them to stay together. They never listen. Then one of them turns up dead.

“No,” Malik says, shaking his head, trying to attach himself again.

But I reach across and grab hold of his wrist.

“I can do this, Malik. I can.”

We sit here—saying nothing, looking at each other—in a flying ship on the outskirts of a city in a parallel universe, worlds away from home.

Malik pulls me towards him, takes my face in his hands and kisses me. His lips are warm and taste of rain and salt and tears. Heat radiates off his body. I keep my eyes open and stare into the darkness of his irises and my stomach flips and the walls throb and my heart jackhammers. Then he pulls back.

Sudden. Unexpected.

Over.

Did I imagine it? Dream it?

Hell, no.

I pull him back by the lapels of his jacket and kiss him hard.

Malik growls, low in his throat. He kisses the hollow of my temple. My closed eyelids. My cheeks. My mouth. He feels good under my hands. There’s an ache in my gut. I’ve Fallen, floated through the fabric between six worlds and come out the other side. But nothing—not the weightlessness, nor the Fall—feels like this.

His tongue in my mouth. Mine in his.

Atoms mingling, dancing.

Exploding.

This is it. Right here. This is what it means to let the continents go—to let the rest of the worlds (all seven of them) drop away into insignificance. I’m as close to death as I’ll ever be, but I couldn’t possibly feel more alive.

“Should’ve done this before,” Malik murmurs, hot against my skin, taking the words right out of my mouth.

The workmen enter the ship, killing the moment.

Malik and I separate.