“I know what it feels like,” Malik says. “You think life is one way, then a door opens and you realise the world is bigger than you thought. I’ve been there, trust me.”

“You want me to trust you? I almost died back there.”

“But you didn’t.”

“This is mad. Why am I even here?”

“You’re here because you’ve Fallen. Through the space-time continuum.”

“The space-time continuum?”

“Yup.”

“So, you’re saying…wait, what are you saying?”

“I’m saying you Fell from your world into this one. From Sol into Lūna.”

“That makes no sense.”

“It will.”

I look away, take stock of my surroundings. Look back at him, rub the heel of my palm up and down my thigh under the table until my skin burns.

“My Old Man…this morning he could see, Malik. And now he can’t. He’s blind—just like that. I mean, it’s not possible. Then, when I phone Bea’s mum to see if she’s there, she…she tells me my best friend’s dead. Dead.”

“That couldn’t have been easy.”

“Easy? Just…tell me what’s going on. For real.”

“The dead Bea isn’t the Bea you know,” Malik says. “She was Bea’s double, in Lūna. And maybe she did die a year ago, it’s possible. But she wasn’t your Bea.”

“You’re blowing my mind right now.”

“Look, I’m no good at explaining this stuff.”

“No kidding.”

“You’re better off asking Vidhan when he gets here. All I can tell you is that the Tube you were on crashed. A shock like that can trigger a first Fall. Later, you’ll learn how to control it so you only Fall when you want to. But for now, you’ve got no choice in the matter.”

I shake my head and drive my thumb into a sharp corner of the table.

“You don’t think it’s possible?” Malik says. “A world like your own, with the same basic physical laws, but existing in an entirely different cosmic realm?”

“Uh…no. I don’t.”

“You’ve never experienced déjà vu?”

“C’mon!”

“No, it’s true. That’s a glimpse of another world. Just a flicker. A fragment. But we’re far beyond flickers and fragments now. And you know it.”

“You presume a lot.”

Malik leans forward in his chair. “This is how it goes,” he says. “In the weeks before you Fall for the first time, you begin to experience strange things. Reality shifts. Lapses in memory. The air wobbles. Then bam! Something radical happens—an accident, a crash, something violent—and you Fall.”

Reality shifts. Lapses in memory. The air wobbling.

Was that the shimmering?

“But on the train…I mean, I was floating. I was suspended—in the air.”

“That’s how it works. First you lift. Then you float. Then you Fall.”

“None of this makes any logical sense.”