We draw close to the wreck of what looks like a crashed aeroplane. The sun glints off its curved surface. Mangled seats—forgotten occupants long dead—lie strewn across the desert. The plane is sunk into drifts of white sand. Its windows are cracked and grimed. One wing has been sheared off. A wide hole is ripped in the side of the fuselage. I stare into the dark within, tense and guarded.

We step through the tear together, into a maw of blackness and hanging wires. The floor is a tip of debris and chunks of metal. And, between them, boot prints.

“HELLOOOOOOO!” Vidhan cries, cupping his hand to his mouth.

Hellooooooo, hellooooooo, the empty space echoes back.

I slump down in a wrecked aeroplane seat with an exhausted grunt.

“Sit tight,” Vidhan says. “It’ll get cold soon. Gotta build a fire.”

He leaves me sprawled in the seat and starts sifting through the wreckage. Akuji, a silhouette against the twilight, stands guard at the hole in the side of the plane. The darkness reels.

The ground tilts.

I black out.

—

Fire. A blaze of orange. Sparks tumble up into the cold dark. Beyond the fire, faces. Huddled figures, wrapped up in cloaks and ponchos. A crown of feathers. Eyes gleaming. Weird shapes and the spit of the fire. Then darkness again.

—

Malik’s face appears in front of me, lit amber by the fire. I can’t tell if it’s the fever playing tricks on me, or if it’s real.

Tell me it’s you, Malik. Tell me it’s not another dream.

He puts his hand on my wrist and I let him. I feel the warmth of his skin.

“It’s you,” I whisper, my voice hoarse. “It’s really you.”

“Thought you could get rid of me?” He smiles. His eyes are dark pools, as dark as the far side of the moon.

“The Reaper,” I say, sitting upright.

“Dead,” he says.

Sparks throw up from the fire. They swirl through umbilical loops of wire, and out to a black night and the stars beyond. I see that I’m wearing my hoodie again and that it’s dry now, trapping heat from the fire.

“We’ve Fallen into Tir,” Malik says. “Not far from the nine runways of Gatwick Airport. It’s a sea of discarded planes out here, for miles and miles.”

“And Vidhan? Akuji?”

“Went for more firewood. They’ll be back.”

I find my sword leaning up against a chair. Clean of blood, as far as I can tell. I reach out and grab the handle, pull it to my side.

“Not bad,” Malik says, watching me. “The way you gutted that thing, midair.”

I turn the sword in my hand.