Alice looked back up at her father. ‘Is this—’

‘Shh.’ He indicated the porthole again, and she put her face back against it.

Geryon entered the room. He looked like he had been up all night, his face thin and drawn beneath his drooping whiskers. He went to the bedside and poked the cat, who raised his head and looked up at the old man reproachfully.

‘Nothing,’ Ashes said. ‘No change.’

‘That counts as good news, under the circumstances,’ Geryon said. He found a high-backed chair, dragged it to the bedside, and sat down heavily.

‘How long, do you think?’ Ashes asked. ‘Before she . . .’

‘It’s hard to say,’ Geryon said. ‘A considerable time, I should think. Maybe never. Having another Reader force himself into the book alongside you is a traumatic process, you know. Something so antithetical to the purpose of the book . . .’ He sighed. ‘We shall see.’

‘I’m surprised you bothered,’ Ashes said. Alice imagined she could hear a hint of bitterness in the cat’s voice. ‘I mean, she failed your test.’

‘I didn’t have much time to ponder it,’ Geryon said. ‘It seemed better to keep my options open.’

‘Options?’ Ashes flicked his tail. ‘So you’re not going to make her forget?’

‘I will wait,’ Geryon said firmly, ‘upon events. But I will do what is necessary. A Reader cannot be . . . soft.’

‘No,’ Ashes muttered, almost too low to hear. ‘I suppose not.’

Alice looked up from the porthole at her father, then down at herself. ‘That’s me in there. So – who am I now? Where are we?’

He shrugged. ‘It’s not for me to say.’

‘But . . .’ Alice bit her lip experimentally. The pain felt real enough.

‘Come on,’ her father said.

He walked down the hallway a bit further, stopping beside the next porthole. Alice looked at him curiously, then bent and put her eyes to the glass. Once again, the scene beyond was not the outside of the ship, but the interior of the room in Geryon’s suite. She was lower down now, closer to her – body, or whatever it was, lying on the bed. Geryon was gone, but Ashes was still there, climbing across her as he walked around in circles, looking for a comfortable spot. His tail lashed. Finally he settled down on her chest in his familiar Sphinx-like posture, staring down at her sleeping face. His paws kneaded gently at the blanket.

‘Might be better for you if you never wake up,’ he said. ‘You don’t know what happens when Geryon makes a Reader forget. What’s left over isn’t what you’d call bright. You’d be walking and talking, after a fashion, but alive? Maybe. I don’t know.’

There was a long pause. The cat laid his head across his paws, eyes hooded.