The hut was empty but warm as Brill and Miriam lifted the youth through the door. With one last effort they heaved him onto a sleeping mat and pulled the door shut behind them to keep the warmth in. “Right,” said Miriam, her voice shaking with exhaustion, “let’s see what we’ve got here.” She stood up and switched on the battery-powered lantern hanging from the roof beam.

“Please don’t—” He lay there shaking and shivering, trying to burrow away into the corner between the wall and the mattress.

“It speaks,” Brill observed.

“It does indeed,” said Miriam. He was shorter than she was, lightly built with straight dark hair and a fold to his eyes that made him look slightly Asian. And he didn’t look more than eighteen years of age.

“Check him for an amulet,” said Miriam.

“Right, you—got it!” A moment of struggle and Brill straightened up, holding out a fist from which dangled a chain. “Which version is it?”

Miriam glanced in it, then looked away. “The second variation. For world three.” She stuffed it into a pocket along with the other. “You.” She looked down at the prisoner. “What’s your name?”

“Lin—Lin.”

“Uh-huh. Do you have any friends out in this storm, Mr. Lin Lin?” Miriam glanced at the door. “Before you answer that, you might want to think about what they’ll do to you if they found us here. Probably shoot first and ask questions later.”

“No.” He lay back. “It’s Lee.”

“Lin, or Lee?”

“I’m Lin. I’m a Lee.”

“Good start,” said Brill. She stared malevolently at him. “What were you doing breaking into our house?”

Lin stared back at her without saying anything.

“Allow me,” Miriam murmured. Her headache was beginning to recede. She fumbled in her jacket, pulled out a worryingly depleted strip of tablets, punched one of them out, and swallowed it dry. It stuck in her throat, bitter and unwanted.

“Listen, Lin. You invaded my house. That wasn’t very clever, and it got at least one of your friends shot. Now, I have some other friends who’d like to ask you some questions, and they won’t be as nice about it as I am. In about an hour we’re going to walk to another world, and we’re going to take you with us. It’s a world your family can’t get to, because they don’t even know it exists. Once you’re there, you are going to be stuck. My friends there will take you to pieces to get the answers they want, and they will probably kill you afterwards, because they’re like that.”