The workmen, without speaking, strap themselves into their seats. One of them mumbles something into a wall intercom. There’s a loud hissing noise. The ship’s engine grinds. And Malik stands. I feel an immediate wrench in my stomach. Malik steps backwards, out of the door, watching me. My eyes don’t leave his.

“Malik!”

Go, he says into my head. And don’t come back for me. Stay away, Ana.

I don’t get a chance to answer.

With a jolt, we lurch up into the air and then we bank steeply and gravity throws my weight against the harness. The sound of the wind screeching outside is fierce. The door is still open, like an army helicopter, and rain flies into the space and drenches us. We scorch up above mountains of waste and the ship turns hard left again and throws us back into our seats. Now the door closes and we knife into the sky, up to the golden pyramid. Up to Bea. And to the ends of the earth.

And all I hear is Malik’s voice in my head.

Go. Stay away.

I know why. He thinks anyone who gets close to him dies.

But I won’t listen. Malik’s right, I’ve changed.

55

I’m standing in a long corridor, some two-and-a-half metres high and sloped downward at about thirty degrees. Brightly lit, starkly white. I’m not sure what sort of material the tunnel is made of, some sort of glass maybe, smooth and hard. The light source is within the walls. It’s been at least five minutes and I’ve seen no one yet. On docking, the workmen ushered me out of the landing bay, looking skittish, then opened a Personnel Only door and pointed through. I stepped inside and they shut the door behind me. I walked on. Alone.

Now I come to a fork. One corridor veers left and the other right.

There are no signs.

I’m close. I know Bea’s been through this tunnel. I don’t know how I know it. It’s a feeling, a sense of her. But I can feel something else too, merged with her presence. Something dark and immense. Pulling me. A malevolent force.

I choose a path on instinct. And I move. The sound inside the corridor is a low, almost organic, humming sound, and I move the length of it, sword in hand, feeling dizzy, disorientated. My feet are almost off the ground. I’m light as air.

His lips on my temple, my cheeks, my mouth.

His breath, a whisper on my skin.

The graze of his stubble.

His blood-caged heart a hand’s length away.

I shake my head to focus.

I climb upwards, for a long time, until I come to a door. I try it.

Unlocked.