I step up to the door, insides churning.

A burgundy-red door. The burgundy-red door. Red, not black. I look at the number above the lintel. 7 Underwood Lane. The 7 offset, tilted to the left. Malik stands next to me, weapon-less. We removed my sword and his gun and stored them at the Haven. I figure I’ll find a more appropriate hiding place later, when things have settled. If they settle.

“Two hours,” I say. My chest is tight. “You’re sure that’s all it’s been?”

“Like I said,” Malik says. “Time is different in each world.”

“But it took so long to get back,” I say, stalling. “Kronos to Venetia, then Jöve, Tir, Ares and Lūna. And all the way from Paris to—”

“They’ll be expecting you, Ana. Like I said.”

“And what do I say about you?” I ask, looking at him, heart thumping.

He shrugs. “Tell them I’m a friend.”

A friend.

—

We said goodbye to Bea at the whitewashed front door of her terraced home on the real Cedar Lane. Actual cars on the road. And trees. And people.

No wheat.

“So, I suppose this is it,” Bea said, looking at her house, and then at me.

“I suppose so,” I said.

“He won’t be there,” she said.

“No,” I answered quietly. “He won’t. But she will. Your mum.”

Bea nodded and inhaled deeply. Breathed out. “Will it hurt?” she said, looking at Malik.

He shook his head. “You won’t feel a thing.”

“And I’ll forget everything?”

“Yup.”

“You’re sure? Everything?” she asked again. “All that weird Falling and getting sick business and…everything else I saw there.”

“Everything,” Malik repeated.

“Why can’t you just let me remember?”

“It doesn’t work that way. You’re a Normal,” he said.

“First time you’ve been called that,” I said, laughing.

Bea gave me the finger.

Malik positioned himself in front of her, placed his hands on her shoulders, straight-armed, and stared into her eyes. Then—without a word uttered, without a sound—he wiped her memory. I knew it must have worked, because when Malik turned her around and pushed her gently towards her home, she didn’t look back.

We stood unobserved—unremembered—on the far side of the street and watched Bea lift the brass knocker and let it fall.

A few seconds passed.

Then the door opened and out spilled a warm light.

Bea stepped inside. The door closed.

—

“So, let’s see,” I say now to Malik. “I go out for a couple of hours and come back with a new friend. A friend who looks like you? Yeah, right. Forget it.”

“What’s wrong with the way I look?”

“Absolutely one hundred percent nothing. Which is exactly my point. You look like you’ve been Instagram-filtered.”

“Which filter?” Malik says, grinning.

“The hot one. And…oh bloody hell.”

“What?”

“The book!”

“What book?”