He wears a crown of what looks like crow feathers and a torn maroon poncho, long to the ground. His face is in shadow but his eyes shine like lit blue torches in the gloom. And, through the poncho’s tattered V-neck, I see metal against his skin. At first, I think it must be a suit of armour. Then I look closely at his face when he moves out of the shadow. Metal. All of it, metal.

“Ana!” Vidhan says, dumping the wood, laying his hand on the shoulder of his startling companion. “This here’s AM-41. He’s a cyborg, but don’t let that bloody scare ya. He saved your life. Best medicine man this side of the Seventh Gate.”

AM-41 presses his metal hands together. “She be the one seeks the Wraith?” he says. His voice is clipped, impatient, run through with static.

“She’s the one,” Vidhan says.

“On account of?”

“She’s got the sword, 41. You see it right there. She’s carrying Ra. Gabe told you about her. He did, right?”

AM-41 nods. He makes a whirring, clicking, machinelike noise, deep in his mysterious body. “Know how to use that there blade?” he asks.

“She cut a Reaper out the sky,” Malik says.

AM-41 drags a metal finger down his metal arm. Slowly. “You got poison in the blood,” he says. “Weren’t for 41, you’d be six-foot-deep, pushin daisies.”

He’s watching me, assessing me—deciding.

“I’m alive,” I say, sheathing the sword. “And, if that’s down to you, I’m grateful.” I look at him, then the others. “I’m not ready for death.”

“No?” AM-41 says. “Well, then I have something you’re gonna need.”

33

“ ‘There’s one true thing you gonna need to know about the world, Buttercup,’ my dad always said.”

I’ve heard this story countless times, but I let Bea continue anyway. With twelve quid apiece, we’re making our way to Cineworld. A horror movie we’ve been waiting for is finally here. But I’m beginning to think it’s a mistake. Bea was in a mood at school, over a fight with her mum that culminated in Bea announcing she wished her mum had died and that her dad was the one alive. That kind of hurt—delivered, or received—sticks.

“What did he always say, your dad?” I ask.

“He said, you come into this world alone and you go out alone.” Bea laughs ruefully. “God, he was a miserable bastard.”

The conversation is growing bleaker by the minute and I’m starting to wonder whether we should cancel the film, head to the Old Man’s roof and let the night slide. But then maybe the movie will take her away, throw dark thoughts to the wind.

“He’s right, though,” I tell her. “I mean, you know, technically.”

“Technically? Say it ain’t so, Moon. Say you don’t believe that crap.”