“Kay, sweetheart, just Kay.” Khan went through the laborious task of taking another drag. “I’m handing my doctorate back,” she said, sounding dog-tired and miserable. “Can’t even do a simple thing like save the world, can I? I’ve gone back over every parallel where I put my plans into action. Nothing worked.”

“Are you…drunk?” Lee asked.

“Little bit. Lucky Cam didn’t take prohibition as seriously, right?” Khan sighed. “Not as drunk as I fucking want to be. What’s up, kids?”

“We wanted to talk about the cracks between the worlds,” Mal said.

“What’s the matter? My maths not magical enough for you?” Khan demanded. “Wish I could conjure up a wardrobe and we could all escape through it? It ain’t happening.” Her head hung loosely, and then she shrugged. “Sorry. None of this is your fault. You shouldn’t even be here. So talk, kids. What can Auntie Kay help you with?”

“These cracks, everyone’s treating them like a symptom, right?”

Kay Amal Khan nodded. “It’s how we know this whole universe is falling apart, sure.”

“Is that the only way we know it’s broken, though?” Lee pressed. “You had that proof…the one the Nissa sent you, that convinced you to go over to them. Was it about the cracks between worlds?”

“Not just that. There are other measurements that allow you to measure the deterioration. But having a fucking dinosaur or a giant bug monster turn up on your doorstep is more of a red flag, frankly.” Khan examined her makeshift vaping device critically, then hurled it away. They watched it clack across the creature’s shell before it bounded into the void. “What?” she demanded. “If you’re going to lecture me about littering then you can f—”

“No,” Lee said hurriedly. “But Mal and I were thinking…the Ediacaran is trying to communicate, using these timeline alternatives. Right?”

Khan shrugged. “Is that for certain? No. Is it likely? Maybe. But so what? It hasn’t had anything useful to say, has it, other than ‘You’re not good enough. Try harder.’ ”

“And if it wasn’t for the cracks between the worlds, the Nissa would never have found you, or the ice world…or anything. Everyone would have had a piece of the puzzle, but nobody would be able to solve it.” Seeing Kay about to say nobody had solved it, Lee added hurriedly, “We couldn’t even try.”

Kay regarded them, her masked face unreadable. At last she said, “You think the Ediacaran was driving in those wedges itself, to make us all pool our resources?”

Lee spread her hands. “Just a thought. Because there have been cracks for millennia. So what if they’re not a symptom, but part of the plan?”