Eventually, the number of buildings starts to decrease. I realize I’m walking on a road with warehouses on either side; it’s familiar. It’s exceptionally quiet. I keep walking. I can hear water trickling. I can hear my breathing. And, then, I stop—and I’m standing in front of the Otter. Inside, the building’s lights are being turned off, one by one. Then a figure appears in the frame of the front door. At first, I think it’s Heather, but the shape is all wrong. It’s Gideon. Unaware that I’m behind him, he starts to lock up. He fumbles with the locks for a while. He’s using his phone light to see where he’s putting his keys. I stand still for a moment, in a shadow, and just observe him.

In the light of the moon that is above us both, I can see that Gideon is just a regular man. There’s nothing monstrous about his appearance; there’s nothing about him that suggests he can disappear into shadows, nothing about his body that says he is powerful. I’m not really sure what I am anymore, though—whether I’m a monster or whether I’m just a woman, or both. I stay watching Gideon in silence for just a few moments, my breathing calm, my senses leveled out, smelling the faint scent of Gideon through the damp smell of puddles between us. It’s strange; I’m completely relaxed. For the first time since arriving in London, I feel like I am exactly where I am meant to be. My legs have carried me to Gideon; the city that has so often failed me has delivered him to me. A sense I didn’t know I possess picks up on something about him that makes him glow as if he is a piece of radium. On the air, the smell of something sweet. A voice in my head tells me it’s his immorality, and it smells like cake. I step out of the shadows. When Gideon turns around and sees me, he jumps.

“Oh!” he says. He looks relieved to see that it’s just me. He walks up to me. I stand still. “Lydia?” he says. He looks at his watch. He’s smiling. I suppose he hasn’t noticed anything off about me: that I’m completely drenched, that my color is probably strange, that I most definitely smell of milk that is slightly sour now, that my mouth is open and that my teeth are showing. “You’re a bit late!” he says, and he laughs.

I want to say something. But I also can’t think of anything to say, and I can’t speak anyway. So, I just smile at him, instead, and he smiles at me. Then he lifts his hand up and places it on my arm—the same hand that touched my body on the stairs.