“You’re too hurt to go look for a door now, aren’t you?” Talei asks.

“Better now than waiting for someone like Baarish to pursue us again,” Etsuko replies. “We don’t know how many middle worlders are aware of Taraana’s existence. Baarish was very blatant. The next middle worlder may not necessarily be as obvious.”

“Let’s go tomorrow morning,” Valentina says. “We need the rest of the day today to breathe and recover from everything that we did. Everything that we saw.” We remember Baarish’s end again and shudder.

“All right?” Paheli asks Taraana, and he nods before getting to his feet.

“Come with me,” he tells her.

“Why?” she demands.

“We need to have a talk about how you continue running away.” He folds his arms.

“I thought we already talked about it!” Paheli says.

“No, that was you making excuses and me letting you. Come on,” Taraana says very patiently.

“I’d much rather not,” Paheli says, and jumps to her feet. “I’m going to go see if Eulalie bought me mangoes.”

She runs away and Valentina smirks at him. “Did you think it would be easy?”

He sighs.

The next morning, we return to the Between, determined to search for a door that is on fire. We spend hours looking, sustained by the magic flowing in there. Once in a while, middle worlders pass us by. None of them bother us, though all of them give us narrow-eyed looks. We asked Eulalie to spread the word; we’re taking responsibility for Baarish’s demise.

“Are you wearing your pendant?” Paheli suddenly asks Taraana, and he makes a face.

“You’ve only asked that question a hundred times today.” He grouses.

She narrows her eyes at him. “Are you?”

“Yes!”

We left the awakened pendant on the floor of the Bhool Bhulaiyaa in Lucknow. Fortunately, we have a whole stack of unawakened ones. Until we find a better way to keep Taraana safe, the pendants will have to do.

“I smell something burning,” Ghufran says suddenly, and we come to attention. It’s true. There’s a scent of smoke in the air. We have seen other doors burning in the Between, but we have never felt enough curiosity to investigate them. We should have.

We follow our noses and, thirty minutes later, arrive at a door that is on fire. We stop in front of it, unsure how to react.

The door leads to Aleppo, Syria. We are not entirely oblivious to the happenings in the human world, you know. We have heard the news and listened to the survivors. We have witnessed the death of other cities, but never from the Between.

“It is a city of screams,” Taraana mutters. “A city full of the ghosts of dead children.”

We share a moment of silence for the people who call the city home.

“Should I bleed on it?” Taraana turns to us.

“Try it,” Paheli says.