I stand up, kick my chair back and put my hand on the hilt of my sword. “That’s not my problem. My problem is getting Bea back.”

“It’s everyone’s problem, Ana. If the multiverse goes, we all go.”

“Can she not see the gravity of the situation?” Silver-Hair demands.

“She is headstrong!” someone else yells. “She will learn. She must.”

“Enough!” I shout, drawing the sword, flashing it through the air.

“Whoa! Easy,” Gabe says, rising from his seat. “OK, I get it. You’re angry. And that’s good. We need you to be angry. We need this Ana Moon.”

“You don’t need me,” I spit back at him. “You’ve got Mother. Go to her. Get her help, if she’s so bloody marvelous.”

“We would,” Gabe says. “But she gave you the sword, Ana. That means something.”

“This isn’t my fight, Gabe.”

“Shinigami must be stopped, Ana.”

I pause. Breathe. “What are you asking me to do?”

Gabe’s eyes flick to the glass roof. “There is a fortress,” he says. “A pyramid. It floats above Paris Nouveau, in Venetia.”

“That’s where they’ve taken Bea!” I say, remembering Mother’s words. To Venetia, above Paris Nouveau…the Seventh Gate. “Let’s go. We’ll storm the place.”

“I am afraid it does not work that way,” Silver-Hair says.

“Why the hell not?” I demand, turning to him.

“Spies,” Gabe says. “The Collective has been infiltrated in almost every part of every world. We could never organise an attack without Shinigami hearing of it. Every Reaper, every Pathfinder in the Order, would be waiting, and there aren’t enough of us to face them head-on.” No one speaks. Gabriel bunches his fists. “The Collective is being hunted. We’re being exterminated. And with every one of our Pathfinders killed, Shinigami becomes more of a god.”

“Not a god,” aquiline-nosed woman says. “A devil.”

Gabe looks at her and then at me. “So, you see, we must do this delicately.”

“Then what’s the plan?”

“There is an object,” he continues. “Ancient and coveted by our kind. We call it the Wraith. Someone in Tir is keeping it safe. You’ll need this artefact before you can even think about going to Venetia. It’s a vial of blood from the first Reaper ever killed, and its scent allows you to pass under their noses undetected. You’ll be imperceptible—a clown fish hiding among the anemones, immune to their deadly poison.”

“A clown fish?”

“Yeah. You know, like Nemo. That little orange—”

“I know what a clown fish is. I just…it’s a weird simile.”

He shrugs. “Beautiful and smart,” he says. “A survivor. Anyway, the Wraith-keeper’s been briefed. He’s to hand it to you, and you alone, on the Council’s authority. He’ll be waiting for you in Tir. Malik knows where. He’ll take you.”

“This Wraith-keeper, is he a Pathfinder?”