Number Seven staggered out of the slash in nothing. He looked back to see Sorrow stepping out of it as if walking through a wound in the face of the world was a perfectly normal thing to do. Maybe it really was for her.

She held it open and for just a moment Seven could look back into the garden of the Alpha house in London. Then Jude stepped through the gap and it closed behind him.

'Aren’t you going to seal it?' said Seven as Jude walked by him.

'Seal what?' said Jude. 'It was never really there.'

'Metaphorical but also real, remember?' said Sorrow.

'For a given value of real,' said Jude.

Seven looked around, trying to work out where Jude had taken them. He’d been expecting Oxfordshire but the already darkening sky over the rough hillside told him that they were much further north. He could smell salt and seaweed on the wind so they must be near the coast. The distant hills had a familiar craggy look.

'The Highlands? Near the west coast of Scotland?' said Seven.

'Good guess,' said Jude. 'We’re very close to the coast. If we climb this hill to the top we should be able to see the Summer Isles. The ford is downhill though. We didn’t visit it the last time I was here so I couldn’t get you any closer.'

'And when was the last time you were here?' said Seven, wondering exactly how old Jude was.

'Seventy-three, I think,' said Jude. He led the way down the hill. 'Little matter of a Police Officer who disappeared while investigating possible cult activity and then turned up dead. That was back in the bad old days. No yPhones, no Library shortcuts, not even much in the way of radio or telephone coverage. No way to call in backup. I was there to protect the old head of the Field section. Come to think of it, that's how I met Alex.'

'Alex used to be head of Field?' said Sorrow.

'What? No. She was just starting in the Archive back then. She was still on probation. How old do you think she is?' said Jude.

'She’s older than she looks if she was an adult in 1973,' said Seven.

'Barely an adult,' said Jude. 'But then I was barely an adult myself.'

'Speaking of barely an adult,' said Sorrow, 'what can you tell me about Number Four?'

Seven was reluctant to say anything. It felt like the worst kind of disloyalty to disclose a colleague's weaknesses. But she had murdered five people. 'She’s a lot tougher than she looks.'

'She’d have to be,' said Sorrow.

'She was a gymnast before she dropped that to join the RAF and then she was a fast jet pilot,' said Seven, thinking back to all the research he’d done before he recruited her.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

'Probably a good thing I’m not fighting her in the air,' said Sorrow. 'What’s she like in a fight?'

'Agile, vicious and she fights dirty. She can’t punch very hard because she’s broken her knuckles too many times but she kicks like a mule and her elbows will find something tender. She’s terrifying with a knife. She knows where all the arteries are and she could find them in the dark. She’s good with a handgun too.'

'Has she studied any weapon arts? Any fencing? Kendo?'

'Not specifically but SIS training is broad. We are taught to use whatever comes to hand.'

The sun was dipping below the horizon as they reached the road. It was little more than a track which was presumably why no-one had built a bridge across the river that Seven could hear up ahead.

As the road dipped down toward the river Seven felt an unexpected vibration in his trouser pocket. He felt for it and found his yPhone. He’d almost forgotten that he still had it. He was so used to throwing away all his phones at the first sign of trouble.

On the screen was the beginning of a text from Cutty. His instinct was to ignore it, surely it could only be a distraction at this point, but the device responded to his gaze and showed him the whole message.

Don’t trust the suit. It’s a toxic narrative of heroic exceptionalism. It will protect you but not those you care about. Their pain, their deaths, will only make you stronger. The more you cling to a person the more danger they are in. If you leave it to the suit to save you it will deus ex machina you out of trouble over Sorrow’s corpse.

Seven read it twice, not sure how to take it

'Looks like someone’s expecting you,' said Jude.

Seven looked up from the phone to see that he had fallen behind. Sorrow and Jude were ahead of him and Jude was pointing down into the water of the river.

Sorrow tutted when she saw the yPhone in his hand. As he caught up she took the phone out of his hand and slipped it into the inside breast pocket of his jacket.

Seven looked where Jude was pointing. The river was streaked with red. 'It’s just the sunset reflected in the water,' said Seven but he followed the line of the river upstream from the ford, just in case, and saw a figure hunched on the bank with her back towards them. 'Or not,' he said.

Sorrow reached for the woman as if to tap her on the shoulder but then stopped and took a half step back. She glanced at Seven and he read confusion on her face.

Seven circled round the stranger. She had long white hair and wore a long green dress. She was crouched amongst the rocks of the bank and both her hair and dress trailed in the water.

The bank on either side of her was strewn with bloodied clothing and pieces of broken armour. In her hands was something that looked a lot like one of his own crisp, white, handmade shirts. As she scrubbed it he could see that it was torn and stained and the red streaks in the water clearly flowed from it.

She stood up and turned slightly to meet his gaze. She twisted the shirt in her hands to wring the last of the water out of it and threw it down on a flat rock by the river. Her face was hollow-cheeked and sunken-eyed. A face worn thin by grief and time but familiar. She had eyes like Sorrow’s.

She looked from Seven to Sorrow to Jude. 'The sensible course of action would be to leave. Go home. This way lies only battle.' Her voice was soft and sad with a hint of a Dublin accent.

Sorrow tapped the sword on her hip, 'That’s not news to me,' she said.

'There is no nobility in this battle,' said the woman.

'Never bloody is,' said Sorrow and Seven heard the anger in her voice. The rage of a soldier that soldiering was necessary.

'And you?' said the woman, staring at Seven. 'Are you sure you want to risk staining your fine white linens?'

'My colleagues are already there. I’m going,' said Seven.

'What about you, man of justice?' said the woman and her lip curled in something like disgust as she spoke.

'Where she goes, I go. Someone needs to watch her back,' said Jude.

'And you think that you’re worthy of that honour?' said the Washer.

'Ask me again when we leave,' said Jude.

'Come along then, fools,' she said and she walked out into the middle of the river.