“There she is,” he said, and for a moment Angela thought he meant Sammi. She was standing with Lilou’s help, smiling at them both as they approached. But Vince was looking to their right, past the stumps of an old building protruding from the ground and towards the spiky remains of a clump of trees. She caught movement among their stripped grey trunks. She had seen that figure before.

“Grace,” she said. “She’s come for Sammi.”

“Huh?”

“Sammi. She can do things, Vince. She’s a fairy, or has fairy blood.”

Confusion shifted to understanding on his face. And then fear.

They reached the ruin where the others waited only seconds before Grace.

* * *

Still weak and queasy from the strange magic she had used, Sammi tried to stagger away from Lilou as she saw Angela and Vince rushing towards her. She felt like the centre of the world and had no wish to be there. She had asked for none of this, and though the strange power she’d felt growing inside for some time excited her, right now it only made her tired and depressed. All she wanted was to be together with Angela, and now Vince.

Lilou did not let her go. Instead she grabbed and held her tight, and Sammi began to panic and struggle.

“I’ve got you,” Lilou whispered in her ear, and Sammi realised that the nymph only ever meant her well. “I’ll look after you.”

Angela and Vince were almost with them. Vince looked different, like an older ghost of himself. Angela looked shocked and afraid. Further away, Grace was also running towards them. She moved so quickly that she left a haze of dust in the air behind her.

Everyone is coming for me, Sammi thought, and she struggled again, wanting only to turn around and run.

“It’ll do no good,” Lilou said.

“What can I do?” she asked. When Lilou didn’t answer, she twisted a little so she could look into the nymph’s face. There was no hope in her eyes.

Bone had moved closer to the cooler door, crouching down as if to hide from the people running at them. None of them knew his real story, and she doubted him. How could someone called Bone be trusted? Even Sammi could see that he’d been military, or still was. Noticing small tells was something her dad had taught her when they used to sit at sidewalk cafés in Cape Cod and people watch together. Carrying a limp but trying to hide it. He walks really upright and stiff, proud. She still wears her hair short, and there’s a regimental tattoo showing beneath her sleeve. With Bone it was something more subtle and fundamental—the way he carried himself; the movement of his limbs; his voice and choice of vocabulary.

“What can I do?” she asked again. Angela and Vince reached them, breathing hard.