The man led her through the library that Coell had acquired for his School of Thoughts, past a bookcase with fold-out tables and chained tomes. Ari squinted at those painted edges: gold, flames, and a constellation of eyes, staring out from an ink-dark sky – or was it the ocean? As intricate as the illustrations were, her gaze strayed back to the chains. They felt like a challenge, yet the wrought-iron chains were too flimsy to survive even a 200mm mini bolt cutter.

‘Yes, yes, I know,’ the man muttered under his breath. He must have caught the look on her face. ‘You could also just rip off the covers. They’re only chained to a hole in the leather anyway.’

‘Were you a thief?’

‘Let’s talk in there.’ He pointed at a door small enough to make her question whether she’d stepped into Alice in Wonderland. ‘And no, there’s no “drink me”, “eat me”. You’ll just have to duck. Go on. Ladies first.’

‘Um… What is this place?’ said June.

‘Says it right on the sign.’

The sign said: The Cell of Solitude – for Quiet Contemplations.

The three of them squeezed into the cell to enjoy their solitude with each other. There was only one chair. June offered it to her.

‘You don’t need to do that. She’s one of us,’ said the man, and settled himself into a long bench in an alcove. In the alcove. Apart from the alcove and the chair, the only other thing in the stone-bare room was a table draped with a cloth full of eyes.

‘Oh… Oh…?’

‘Doesn’t mean she’s on our side though.’

‘I’m guessing you’ve shut us in a prison with a tiny door and barely a window because you think people are less likely to overhear us here?’ said Ari.

‘Yes, except this is supposed to be a philosophical anchorite. You can withdraw from the world and live with your thoughts here.’

‘In my thoughts I can really rap,’ said June, turning to Ari. ‘Are yours any better?’

‘Sometimes I think I can win a fistfight against a wolf, even though wolves don’t have fists. I’m not sure if I want to live with that. But I’m not sure if smaller windows really mean people can’t eavesdrop on our conversation either,’ she added.

‘True, but to be honest I just wanted to make sure that this time, you’re close enough to look me in the eye when you kill me.’

‘Kill?!’ gasped June.

‘Quiet June. I led her back here because we’re outnumbered here in this world. We should lean on each other, despite our previous differences, and–’

A glint of steel.

CLANG.

The dagger that Natty had handed her met the man’s blade, almost leisurely. After all, she’d been waiting for him since he’d paled at her face.

The smile he’d attempted midsentence to distract her from his attack lingered still. Even with the handicap from Claribel’s body, she could twist the knife from his hands. He must have been a truly low-level grunt.

‘Wait, what is going on? Aren’t you guys from Red Acre School?’

===Mission: Return of the Child. Locate Miri and bring her back to her family.===

===Quest: Knowledge is Power. Locate Miri’s school friends. [Complete…?]===

A hidden quest that she hadn’t even noticed, already come to completion? She couldn’t recall the name of Miri’s school; most likely, she’d never known it, but it was worth a gamble. ‘I wasn’t a student there, but I did know Miri,’ she said, tucking both her dagger and the man’s knife into her belt. Bring one get one free. ‘To echo our friend over there, I completely agree. We should lean on each other, as much as our previous differences allow.’

‘Then were you a researcher from Miri’s dad’s office?’ squealed June, shedding all pretence of being a middle-aged woman. ‘Please tell me you are! How do I get back? Wait, how do you know each other? What’s all that talk about killing? What’s going on?’

Ari borrowed a softer gaze from Claribel and patted June on the back, as gently as she could, though she couldn’t bring herself to assure the girl that all was right. It couldn’t be. Not with a terrorist sat on the bench next to her.

‘As I’ve told you before,’ said the man, eyeing Ari from the corner of his eyes, even though he’d turned to face June, ‘I was a research scientist working for an organisation that was a rival to Miri’s father’s. Unfortunately there were some safety issues due to how hard we were working to compete with whatever results Miss Lee’s labs were achieving. Miss Lee was there when my lab was struck by a terrible accident… A fire broke out, you see.’ Seeing the disbelief on the girl’s face, he added, ‘You know how big corps are.’

‘And where was lab was this again?’ asked Ari. A long list of countries and organisations ran through her head.

‘Docklands.’

One of her first missions.

That night, Venus burned bright. The organisation, Eternity, was small. Still in its infancy, as the Chief had described it. Something small and local to cut her teeth on.

‘Eternity claims to be paving a path to eternal life. It’s actually a front for a drug cartel. They are using children as mules. Can you imagine? That is pure evil. We must eradicate them. Every. Single. One of them.’

‘How old is Ari?’ said Max, who was supposed to drive their escape van.

‘Who knows? She was found, not born.’

‘Fifteen? Sixteen? Legally a child. So am I. Thanks for the fake ID so I can drive.’

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

‘What is your point, Maximilian Martin?’

Max shrugged.

‘And one more thing. There is a box within the central safe. Fortunately, Eternity is a small organisation. The safe currently housing the latest bioweapon is flimsy, at best. I want you to retrieve the box, Ari Lee. The mission is a failure without the box. But don’t open it. Terrible things will happen if you do, as you can well imagine.’

‘If it really contains a bioweapon, shouldn’t Ari go in wearing a hazmat suit?’

‘Maximilian Martin, do you really want to be part of this mission?’

‘Who’s going to drive the van, if I’m not going? You?’

Yes, that night, Venus burned bright, brushing past a red-tinged Mars under a crescent moon. Somehow, the old warehouse caught fire. Still, Ari retrieved the box and handed it to the Chief.

She never saw it again.

‘What is… What was your name?’ she asked him. Perhaps she shouldn’t know: breeching past a halfway house to rewriting her own history.

‘Percy, now as it was then, though Lord Coell likes to call me Percival. Makes me sound more learned. Sorry about the knife. You can keep it. Honestly, I’m living an honest life here, helping Lord Coell with his Book of Spells. Nothing dark and magical, mind you. It’s for standardising spelling. High octane stuff.’

‘Since you’ve used variants of “honest” twice in the same sentence, you must be telling the truth,’ she said, trying to supress her sarcasm. Wrong or right, he didn’t seem a threat to June right now. ‘Shall we hear from June first then? Was your name June originally too?’

June nodded.

‘Then can you tell me everything? How did you and your friends find your way into this world?’

June closed her eyes.

How old was the girl? Fifteen? Sixteen? The age when she’d killed Percy, wide-eyed and feeding on adrenaline to press forward, forward, over bodies who were men just a moment ago?

June closed her eyes, and told them her story.

It all started two years ago.

Miri went really weird. Not that she was normal normal before, but she definitely plunged off a cliff of sanity somewhere two years ago.

Miri’s really close friends – actually, there’s just one, Annabel – her really close friend said it’s probably because her great, great, great gran or someone really ancient in her family got sick. Yeah, fine, it’s really sad, but what does she expect when they’re nearly a hundred?

Anyway, apparently Miri stole something from her dad’s office.

As everyone knows, stealing is bad, so when she heard that Miri had stolen something, of course she had to have a look. Annabel led her and Meg to the science lab in the basement of their school. It was supposed to be locked, because the pipes in the floor burst or something boring like that.

Miri was inside, holding a Bunsen burner. Without her safety goggles on or her hair tied back. She was lighting a red candle carved with far too many eyes and a single, grinning mouth, like some sort of deformed jack o’lantern. Worse, Miri had drawn some sort of a summoning circle on the floor.

It was dark, and red, and she really hoped it wasn’t blood.

‘Oh hello,’ Miri said when she saw them. ‘Good of you to come.’

‘What the fuck are you doing? Think you’re some modern-day witch? What’s that supposed to be? Your grimoire?’ Meg pointed to a book that Miri was sitting on.

‘This thing?’ Miri removed the matt black dust jacket. What was inside looked much more interesting than the chemistry textbooks that they’d usually read in this room. The guys on the cover were hot. ‘Have you heard about transmigration?’

‘Are you… are you saying we can become this girl?’ She jabbed at the girl with platinum-blonde hair and violet eyes: things that she’d never have. Both of the guys seemed into those too. One was kissing a loose strand of her hair, and the other was gazing into her eyes as if they were the last chocolate buttons in a pack. ‘That’s ridiculous! You can’t do that!’ Would be nice if you could though. She, for one, would volunteer–

‘Thanks for volunteering,’ said Miri, lunging forth to grab her wrist. Unfortunately, Miri knew judo or taekwondo – one of those things with belts – but she only knew how to grow tomatoes, and…

WHOOSH.

The next moment, she was staring into the beautiful, forest-green eyes of an extremely handsome man. It wasn’t the same as the guys on the cover, no, but who cares? She glanced down. Gold rings on her hands. Gold! More importantly, there was a whole feast in front of her.

‘Looks like you’ll have to wait,’ she said to the man.

‘Wait for what?’

She helped herself to roast goose and pâté on the most delicious home-baked bread.

‘Your… appetite is astonishing, Lady Cass,’ said the man.

‘I’ll tell you what’s astonishing,’ she said, between chews. ‘This!’

‘Ah. The slow-cooked venison. It took our Cook six-and-a-half hours, I believe. I am so glad that you are savouring it, my lady… Once we are married, you can enjoy…’

His words wobbled. She reached for another bite of the bread. It fell through her hands. What…? Had it been poisoned? Had she been… been…

‘Did it work?’ said Miri, peering down at her. The candle in her hands must have been snuffed out moments ago. Its smoke still trailed through the air, like how her soul must have done, flying across universes.

‘Holy shit.’ She flexed her fingers. They were hers again. No longer soft and dainty. Meg was crying, asking if she was okay, but who cares when she’d just been rich and beautiful? ‘Holy shit. Send me back there!’

Miri shook her head, though her eyes were shining. ‘It’s not ready for the big one yet. Right now, the trip only lasts until the candle burns out. That’s not nearly long enough. Don’t worry though. I’ll call you when we’re ready for the next trip.’

‘And now you’re back here,’ said Percy.

‘We did lots of trips, me, Meg and Annabel. Miri never went, because she had to look after the candles. Hindsight’s 20:20, because why wouldn’t you want to go visit this amazing world yourself? So why didn’t she go unless there were hidden dangers? But at the time… it was just so much fun. You get to be someone amazing for a few hours. I touched real diamonds bigger than the one on my mum’s wedding ring. I actually showered some lady’s whole jewellery box over me at one point and rolled in all those gems. It wasn’t very comfortable. One out of ten. Would not recommend.’

‘And which ladies did you find it so delightful to possess?’

~But they are my friends! Lady Cass is a dear friend of mine.~ Claribel looked grave. ~Also, the burnings started two years ago. That’s when the Church first blamed the Khurammians for spirit-possession… If it turns out it was a bunch of young ladies having their fun… Do you know how many lives were lost?~

‘To be honest, I can’t remember half their names. I kept trying to roll Lady Cass again, just to meet that first guy and finish what we started, because he had the most beautiful eyes…’ She clasped her hands together and sighed. ‘But as you can see, it all went sideways. One day, Miri just said that we’re running out of time, whatever that means. And then she sent all of us in, but somehow this time I can’t get out! And I’m stuck in this body. Why?!’

Ari considered the timeline.

‘How long have you been in this body?’

‘Two years! We only experimented for a month or so before the final trip. Miri got some others involved too. That’s why I thought you might be from Red Acre. But yeah, I got landed in some random widow’s body with no money and a host of headlice. Thank god I know how to grow stuff! I came to Eirene, thinking I’d find Meg, or Annabel, or even Miri, but who knows where they are? Knowing their luck, they’re probably living lives of luxury while I’m stuck here, cleaning and gardening for food.’

Agent Temple went through six months ago. But did the Chief ever mention when Miri had become a husk?

Two years. Two years.

Was that when Natty had met Miri in the canteen? Right after the death of her great-grandmother? Time was running out for her then. Or had it already run out?

Time. Running out. For what? For the Chief to retrieve the book she’d stolen? Or for something else altogether?

Time. Time would run out for them all. Unless… Eternity.

She turned to Percy, who’d been quietly listening. ‘The box. The one in your safe. What was in it?’

He smiled, eyes still sad, and said, ‘The book.’