I don’t see Malik and Vidhan reenter the room, but I hear them. Drawers open and close and then the light dims and I hear a few mumbled words and clothes being shed. Then someone comes pattering in socks to my bedside and murmurs my name.

“Ana? You awake?”

I roll my head on the pillow. Malik. Murderously beautiful in the garish red light. “I spoke with Gabe,” he says. “He told me everything.”

I look at him and try to speak. My body is lead. My eyelids are heavy.

“I’m tired” is all I manage, voice fading.

Truth is, I’m far beyond tired. I’m shattered. Every muscle in my body hungers for that dark descent. That annihilation of my senses.

“Good,” Malik says. “Sleep. We’ve got a long journey ahead. We’ll wake early, head south towards France and meet the Wraith-keeper along the way. In Tir.”

28

I’m floating. Flying! I throw out my arms and shout at the cobalt sky and the high moon, then break through a bank of clouds and see land below. Great swathes of white sand and dark mountains. Desert. I slam into another wall of cloud and spin out of control. When I blast out the other side, the land has changed. A forest now, thick and green. I’m drifting over the canopy where wreathes of mist flow between the branches. I crash through another cloud and I’m whipped by the wind, flipped upside down. Then I’m out the other side again, and here the land is menacing and nightmarish. I fly over a scorched earth, over skeletal trees and scree. Freezing air cuts across my face. A river snakes through the cinders and I see an island in the middle of the river. Above, a giant pyramid looms, shining gold in the sun. From the mouth of the pyramid extends a ramp and here I see a circle of Reapers, pink and bony, their wings torn and frayed and folded to their backs. They enclose a figure in a hooded white cloak, their eyes and face in shadow. The figure lifts something to the sky and the Reapers rock and screech and I see the offering now—pale skin, near luminous against the ash-blackness.

Bea!

The figure in the hooded cloak turns his head, as if listening, sensing a disturbance in the air and I know—I know—it’s me it feels. Its head swivels towards me. I can’t see the eyes, but I know they see me.

It points and the Reapers let out a wild cry.

SKRAAAAA­AAAAA­AAAAA­AAAK!

They launch into the air, beat their wings and come for me.

It’s just a dream. They won’t reach me. It’ll be OK.

It will.