I watch him move catlike across the yew branch, then step through the window past me, calm and unhurried, as though all this is an everyday, ordinary thing. Embarrassed, I snap my duvet over rumpled sheets and toe the sick-bin further under the bed. He watches me. Dark-eyes. Malik. Just him and me, locked in my room. Equal parts terrifying and exhilarating and, because that’s clearly not something I want him to know, I give him my most disaffected look, which fails appallingly and ends up a kind of grimace.

He’s wearing the same outfit as before. White T-shirt, leather bomber jacket, high-top boots, faded jeans and a fat belt. Except this time there’s a holster on the belt. And, in the holster, a matte-black gun. I mean, bloody hell.

“That’s a pistol,” I say, flustered, snatching a look at my locked door.

“Nothing gets past you.”

“Why’ve you got a gun?”

“Protection.” He looks at me, grinning. He whips it from the holster in a blur, spins it in his fist, like a gunslinger, and then he extends it to me, butt first. I hesitate and he spins it again and replaces it in his holster, fast as a bat’s wing.

“Where are you from?” I demand, trying to look unimpressed, but my stomach is in knots and I feel a cold sweat coming on.

“Out there,” he says, waving a hand at the window, sauntering through the room, looking at my bookcase, tilting his head to examine the spines.

“Out there…where?”

“Many places.”

He moves on, scanning my shelves. He lifts a tome. Philip Pullman. His Dark Materials. He knocks it back between the others with a smile. He’s calm, in control and cool, but not detached. Beneath it all, I sense a hum of raw energy. Here is someone who isn’t afraid. Who doesn’t know the meaning of fear.

“What’s your deal?” I ask him. “What’s going on?”

“Finally. A question worth answering.”

“You got a ballsy attitude for someone who’s just broken into my room.”

“Uh…you let me in, remember?”

“Look, I’m gonna call the police. If you don’t—”

“The police?” He laughs. “Gimme a break.”

“Keep your voice down,” I hiss. “Please. If they find you in my room…”

“They?”

That stumps me. What do I say? Who exactly are they, the Old Man and Gad?

“Look,” he cuts in. “The police don’t matter, Ana. Not now. Not here. They can’t help.”

“The police don’t matter?” I say. “Really?”

“Nope. Let ’em go, Ana.”

“Let ’em go?”