When Alistair said it, it almost sounded like a compliment.

“Is it bad?” I asked. “Dying?”

“Oh, please don’t,” he said, flopping flat on the floor.

“I’m afraid of dying,” I said.

“Well, you probably won’t for a while.”

“The Ripper wants to kill me.”

That made him pause. He lifted his head from the ground to look at me.

“What makes you say that?” he said.

“Because he said so.”

“You serious?” he asked. “The Ripper?”

“Yup,” I said. “Any advice? In case it happens?”

I tried to smile, but I know it didn’t look like a smile—and there was no hiding the quake in my voice.

Alistair sat up slowly and tapped his fingers on the floor.

“I don’t even remember dying. I just went to sleep.”

“You don’t remember it at all?”

He shook his head.

“I thought I was having a really strange dream,” he said. “In my dream, the IRA had put a bomb in my chest, and I could feel it ticking, and I was trying to tell people it was going to explode. Then it went off. I saw the explosion come out of my chest. Then that part of the dream faded, and I was in my room, and it was morning. I was looking down at myself in bed. For all I know, this is all part of that dream. Maybe I’m still having it.”

“Why do you think you came back?”

“I didn’t come back,” he said. “I just never left.”

“But why? I mean, don’t they say that ghosts come ba—stay around—because they have unfinished business or something?”

“Who says that?”

That was a good question. The answer was television shows, movies, and Cousin Diane. Not exactly the most reliable places to get information.

“I hated this place,” he said. “All I wanted was to get out. Death should have taken care of that, and yet here I am. Over twenty-five sodding years at this sodding school. I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t know why I’m like this or what happens to other people. I just know I’m still here.”

“Would you go, if you could?”

“In a second,” he said, lying back down. “But that doesn’t seem to be happening. I don’t even think about that anymore.”

I squeezed the terminus in my pocket. I could make Alistair’s dream come true, right now. In a second. The enormity of it just made it funny. Don’t want to exist anymore? Okay! Zap. Done. Puff of smoke and you’re gone, like a magic trick. I ran my finger over the buttons. Maybe this was how I was meant to spend this day—setting someone free.