‘It was fun while it lasted. What do you think they’ll put on my grave?’

‘If you ever get one.’

They split apart, but kept their hands almost touching.

Zita sighed.

‘There must be something we could do,’ Tom said.

Once more, Kit grunted and moaned. He was in pain; the silver bracelet seemed to be hurting him more keenly.

Tom began to look around, picking up the objects and studying them. A carriage clock, not ticking. Two lamps, burning with strange, weak light. A paperknife with a pearl handle. A model of a boat. This gave Tom pause. It looked like the one his parents had drowned in. It resembled it down to the last detail. If he looked closely, he thought he could even see two figures in the cabin. He passed over it quickly.

The diary of Margaret Ravenswood. He picked the bound volume up and flicked through it avidly, but the pages were empty of writing.

He could almost sense Jack laughing in the far distance.

Everything felt weightless and unreal.

Kit coughed, spluttered and sat upright. He looked so weak and spent, his eyes and hair dull. Tom rushed to his side and held him in his arms. He felt thin and light.

‘Thomas …’

‘Here.’ Tom gave Kit a glug from a healing draught. When it had entered his blood, he began to look a little pinker.

‘It be all a’cause of me,’ Kit muttered.

‘No, Kit, no, it’s not … it’s all of us, we’re all in this.’

They stood huddled together by the table in the centre.

‘Have you tried breaking the glass?’

In answer, Zita picked up the paperweight and slung it at the transparent wall. It bounced off, falling uselessly to the wooden planks.

‘How long have I been in here?’

Zita shrugged. ‘I have no idea.’ She indicated the grandfather clock with a slight incline of her head and raised an eyebrow. The clock was not ticking. It did not even have any hands. ‘I don’t know if time has any meaning here at all. We might have been here for years. Or we might be kept here for a second of earth’s time.’

Tom prowled around the room, twisting his fingers together. ‘When Jack put the bracelet on you, you said you could take it off.’

‘Nanny used to call that cheek. It was the only thing I could think of to say. I wanted to show him that he didn’t control all of me.’

Kit coughed again.

‘You’ve known him the longest, Kit. What are his weaknesses?’

‘Jack hath no weakness.’

‘Is he part Samdhya now?’

Kit shrugged.

Tom bent down and handled the paperweight. It was blue with white swirls in it. It reminded him of the sky. He wondered if he would ever see that again.

‘Something Rohenga said. The Samdhya leader …’

‘You spoke with him?’ Kit looked perturbed.