At last they signalled Cam, which descended gracefully, tilting until they could step onto its upper surface. Lee and Mal were sitting together, masked heads close. They stared out towards a sunset that would be as wan and unspectacular as all the rest here. Alison felt a sudden stab of jealousy from left field, utterly unlike her. She knew the story of the two losing and regaining one another, and of all the humans they seemed to be able to take anything in their stride now they were together. She glanced at Julian, but he was looking elsewhere. Probably he was simply thinking about the mountain of explanations he’d have to deal with when he finally made it home.

Several new trilobites had made the jump over, as Alison understood it, and there was practically a shuttle service between here and the Cousins’ timeline to bring materiel and experts across. Daniel Rove had even been back to the rat world. He seemed to have done some sort of service as ambassador, given that the rodents and the Cousins had been engaged in an old war. Certainly the rats were now contributing to the universal repair effort too. And if Alison wanted, she could speak to Kay Amal Khan and hear her talk endlessly about buttressing, self-perpetuating waveforms and mathematically describing the status quo. None of this was terribly edifying, even with the Ice’s pictorial assistance.

She half expected there to be a goodbye when Kay finally approached them aboard Cam. She’d thought the scientist would end up going with the Cousins to their world, one more thing for poor Julian to explain. Apparently not, though—and probably it was for deeper reasons than the Cousins’ lack of cigarettes.

Lee and Mal drifted in soon after, then Rove, his lackey trailing on his heels. Rove had been remarkably well behaved, for Alison had been keeping as much of an icy eye on him as possible. He had made no moves to initiate whatever grand project he had been preparing. Instead, she suspected he’d been acquiring as much know-how and tech as he could from more advanced timelines. In the post-healing world, he’d probably turn out to be rather more of a problem than anyone currently realized. But that was tomorrow’s issue.

Lee and Mal were looking a little tearful in the face of all this closure, which was fair enough, as they’d been the only ones having even halfway to a good time. “I just…We’re losing something huge,” Pryor said. “Who knows how much of our past has been influenced by the other Earths just…being there, a breath away, down the wrong path in the forest, through the stone circle, on the other side of a closed door…and now there won’t be any magic, you know?” She caught up with what she was saying and looked instantly ashamed. “Not that it’s magic, but…it’ll just be us.”