Peter followed the snow goose, feeling the deep beat of its wings in his chest as it travelled out across the islands towards the forest.

“We’re not quite there yet,” Tokala went on, “but there’s a space that exists in the exchange from day to night where everything stops. Birdsong. The animals. Movement. Time, even. It’s barely a beat, really, like the moment you throw a stone up in the air and it hangs there just before it falls. The world hovers in space. But life is so present here, you can almost feel the scales of a pine cone closing. We’re inside that moment right now. Can you feel it?”

A lone deer, perched beneath the pines at the lake’s edge, lifted its head from the ground and paused. Its front hoof hovered. Ears flicked forward then held still. Peter set his staff down across the ice, drawn closer to the world by a strange sense of arrival, and the world was still.

“I felt this just before daybreak once,” Peter whispered.

“Yes. That too.”

“What is it?”

“Tranquillity,” said Tokala.

Peter followed Tokala’s gaze and the cold mountains glowed.

“The Earth,” Tokala went on. “The universe. Mysteries that let your imagination wander.”

He wasn’t watching anything in particular and yet his eyes were somehow travelling great distances now, at once passing over mountains and seas, deserts and vast forests.

“We had everything we ever needed, Peter.”

“Had?”

“I’m only sorry I can’t make this moment last forever.”

“What did we have?”

“I am truly sorry.”

“What did we have?”

But Tokala didn’t answer. The deer’s ears flicked back, alert to movement behind it in the woods. Its hoof struck the ground and it turned away, bolting.

“Nineteen of the former United States have reformed,” said Tokala. “With government, business and infrastructure. The group of people Cooper and I belong to now can help stop the Dead from attacking, Peter. They are no longer the threat they once were, and so the government are standing poised ready to recall everyone from the national parks back to the real world. West Wranglestone is only the beginning, a gateway town before full integration back into the modern world. The Escape Programme is over.”