Angela opened her eyes and Vince was there with her, sitting beside the bed, eyes closed and snoring softly. She looked around in a panic. Her breath came faster, and she peered at the closed door, expecting to see the hulking shape of a policeman standing guard.

“Hey, hey,” Vince said. Her troubled fidgeting had stirred him. “Take it easy.”

“Where are we?”

“Hospital.”

“But—”

“You needed attention,” he said. “We both did.” He tipped a bottle of water against her lips and she took a few grateful sips.

“They’ll arrest me. Put me in jail.”

Vince smiled. “If they did, you could blame it on the Angel of Death.”

“Huh?”

“That’s what they’re calling Mallian. Some of the press is, anyway, and the name’s stuck.”

“Angel of Death. He’d like that.” She tried to calm herself, but the fear was still there that after all this, her fate lay in a prison cell for the London murders that Mallian had committed.

“How bad am I?” she asked.

Vince’s eyes flickered to the side, then back to her. “I thought I’d lost you. You stopped breathing three times. They brought you back, but I’m not sure... I think Sammi had something to do with it, too.”

“My... legs?”

“Battered, broken. It’s your spine that’s the problem.” He paused, frowning. “They don’t know if you’ll walk again.”

Angela closed her eyes and took in a deep breath.

“But Sammi!” Vince said. “She thinks she’ll be able to help, but just not yet. Not until she’s really found herself.”

“Heal me?” She opened her eyes again, sad to see tears in Vince’s.

“I hope so. That’s what she thinks.”

“Where is she?”

“She’s outside somewhere. She comes in sometimes, looks at you, then leaves again.” He looked uncomfortable.

“What?” Angela asked.

“She’s not really Sammi anymore.”

Angela felt a profound sadness, but also a strange sense of release. She’d taken Sammi’s wellbeing onto her own shoulders after rescuing her from the Folded Land, but now it seemed that relationship had switched.

“She’s making sure they look after us without telling the authorities,” Angela said.

“Yeah. She calls it ‘subtle suggestion’, but she says it can’t last long. We’ll have to leave soon. They’ve patched you up, pumped you full of drugs, sewn up your wounds, and we both have these.” He lifted his arm to show his cast, and she felt the same around her left arm, and saw the cast on her left leg. She couldn’t feel it.

“I should have died,” she said.

“But you didn’t.” Vince leaned over to hug her tight. She felt the drip of his tears, and the room blurred as she cried her own.

“How long have we been here?”