I turn and look at my best friend.

“Bea…listen to me. I’ve travelled so far to find you. And—”

“So far?” she says, cutting me off. “I’ve only been here. At the parentals’ house. That’s a fifteen-minute cycle from yours, Moon.”

“Bea—”

“Moon,” she says, dragging the hair out her eyes. “I’m home. I don’t care about all this.” She waves her arm, indicating the fields into the distance. “I don’t.”

I look out over the fields and the impossible blue sky, wracking my brain.

“How long have you been here?” I ask.

“Here?” she says, glancing down the corridor. “I mean…I don’t know. Like, a day? It feels like a day. But then…OK, maybe longer. I can’t really remember.”

“Doesn’t that bother you?” I ask.

“I’m home,” she repeats emphatically.

“Right. But you don’t remember how long you’ve been here, and I bet you don’t remember how you got here, do you?” I ask.

“I do. I was…with you, right? We were walking home from school through the woods…and then…and then I was here. That’s all.”

“You don’t remember the Circle Line? What happened?”

“Nothing happened,” she says, shaking her head. “I came right here.”

I feel a spurt of panic in my gut. I think about Malik, waiting—bruised and bloodied—knife at his throat. “Do you remember the fight, at least?” I ask Bea.

“With Erika Jürgen? Course. How could I forget that?”

My heart skips. Now we’re getting somewhere.

“Yeah, that was crazy,” Bea continues. “The way you pulled her off me! I’ve never seen you like that. You were something, Moon. If it wasn’t for you—”

“Wait. No. That isn’t how it happened. You’re the one pulled her off me.”

“You crazy? Moon, it was you.”

Now I’m the one with a warping, bending memory. My head spins.

“But—”

“You really let her have it, Moon. It was impressive, gotta say.” She looks down the corridor again, takes a step away from the door.

My heart beats hard.

I shut my eyes and I’m on the path again. In the woods. With Bea.

And, like a bulldozer, Erika Jürgen comes.

Next thing I know she’s got me—no, that’s wrong, it didn’t happen that way, she’s got Bea pinned up against a tree. It happens fast, her hand is at Bea’s throat and then I’m the one pulling Erika off Bea and I’m hitting her and hitting her and, at the edges of my vision, everything bends. The light turns silvery. It shimmers.

I remember now. It was me. I was the one doing the beating. Me.

The multiverse tips.

And then I think about Mother.

A promise you make to someone. That could mean something here.