“We’re not that easy to kill,” Linua said, her voice hard.

Eret didn’t say anything. Bead put his hands up, holding the beer bottle with one thumb hooked around it.

“I’m not planning to hurt you, sweetheart. I’m just saying. You could have put yourselves in danger today. Both of you just think about what I said there.” He pointed at Eret, who still hadn’t moved or spoken. “You particularly.”

“Thanks for answering our questions,” Linua said rapidly.

She grabbed hold of Eret’s arm, afraid at any moment he was going to react explosively, but he went with her without resisting. They flailed away from the boathouse through the soft beach sand. Linua angled further up the beach, where the sand spilled onto pavement, and restaurants lined the curve of the road. She had one of her precious fifty-shekel notes with her. Maybe she and Eret could get ice cream or an iced chocolate milkshake or something.

She realised she was still holding onto Eret’s arm and let go. Eret hadn’t objected to her holding it. She stole a glance at his face and realised in alarm that his face was grey and he was breathing too harshly.

“Eret, what’s wrong?”

He didn’t reply, but his breath was coming in great gasps now. Thoroughly alarmed, Linua glanced around her. The beach was still fairly populated at this time of the evening, but there were only a handful of people nearby. None of them seemed to have noticed. She pushed Eret into the shade of one of the trees that lined the pavement. He didn’t resist then, or when she made him sit down. She knelt in front of him and stared into his eyes, but it looked like he wasn’t even seeing her.

Oh gods, what should she do? Was he dying?

“Eret, breathe!” she commanded. “Breathe in for four, hold it for four, breathe out for four. Like this.”

She demonstrated. It was the simplest of Auntie Hui Ying’s meditation techniques and the only thing she could think of. Should she call an ambulance? Where was the nearest telephone box? She looked around again, but couldn’t see one nearby.

She kept talking him through the breathing cycle, but it didn’t seem to help. In the end she grabbed his hand and put it on her chest, then inflated her lungs, as if she could make him breathe in sympathy with her.

“Breathe, Eret,” she said again, and began the count again. After a couple of cycles he started breathing with her. He closed his eyes. A couple of minutes later he seemed to snap out of it, and at the same time realised where his hand was. He snatched it back and leaned forward with his elbows resting on his knees, staring at the ground.

“Thanks,” he said. His voice sounded ragged.

“Are you okay now?”

“Yeah.”

After another minute, still not looking up, he said, “That was a panic attack.”

Oh.

“Because of the kidnapping last year?”

He nodded.

“I was getting them a lot more before. I haven’t had one for a while. But when he shoved me, I just … it reminded me.” His fist clenched. “I just stood there and I couldn’t do anything!”

“That’s okay,” Linua said after a moment. “He wasn’t actually trying to hurt us, just warn us.”

“Yeah.” Eret leaned back and stared up at the branches above him. He still wasn’t looking at her. “But I notice you didn’t get a panic attack.” He sounded bitter. Then he added, “I’m sorry, I don’t mean it like that. I’m glad you haven’t. I wouldn’t wish them on anyone.”

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Linua remembered what Anith had said about agency. Eret’s experience of the kidnapping had been very different from hers. They had both been threatened, but Linua had had choices and a measure of control over her situation. Eret hadn’t. Eret had had to be rescued.

Linua struggled for a way to say this that wouldn’t sound demeaning.

“Because…” she said slowly, “It just, you know, happened to you. You couldn’t have done anything about it. All you could do was go along with what they said and hope you could get out of there when you had a chance. The rest of us had a warning from the thief, and time to make plans. And we had the thing he wanted. We could prepare and make the trade. You didn’t get that.”

They sat for a moment.

“I didn’t want you to see me like that,” Eret said finally.

Linua shuffled around to sit beside him. She put her head on his shoulder.

“I didn’t have a panic attack exactly when the journalist turned up at the Observatory, but I did sort of freeze up. You were there for me. I never said thank you.”

Eret put an arm around her shoulders.

“You’re welcome.” He sounded a little better.

“I should tell you why she was there.”

“You don’t have to.”

“Yeah, but I will. It’s really hard for me to talk about, though. Can I tell you, like, at the weekend or something?”

She heard a smile in his voice now.

“Yeah, okay. I admit, I think you’re really special, but I have no idea why a journalist would be interested in you.”

Linua laughed.

“Shall we get some chocolate milkshake or something?”

“Yeah, let’s.”

“I have fifty shekels with me.” She stood up.

He stood up beside her and, somehow, they were holding hands.

“That’s a lot of hot chocolate.”

“I have to save some of it for Solly’s bike.”

“Seriously, Linua, don’t give him more than, like thirty, or no, twenty-five for it. It’s a heap of junk! Anyway, I can give you a lift on my moped whenever you want.”

“I want to have a bike for emergencies.”

“Come on, let’s find a place.” He tugged at her hand, heading for the nearest café.

Linua felt a little self-conscious holding Eret’s hand, but it didn’t stop her, not even when a girl about Eret’s age, or maybe a bit older, came into the café while they were ordering, and smirked at the sight, giving Eret a slow glance up and down, which Eret didn’t notice.

“Would you have been able to stop the treasure hunter’s goons from kidnapping you?” Eret asked quietly, as they sat down with glasses of sweet, spicy hot chocolate in which floated scoops of slowly melting ice cream.

“I don’t know,” Linua admitted. “I’ve thought about it. It depends on a lot of things.” She hesitated. “I actually gamed it out with my cousins.” She flicked an uncomfortable glance at Eret, but he didn’t seem perturbed by this. “If they—I mean, the goons—weren’t expecting me to have any wushu abilities, then we thought yes. It would be important to avoid letting them get a bag over my head.” She checked again, to make sure he wasn’t troubled by any flashbacks. “And there are various things I could do to get out of a hold. Or to stop them putting me in the car. But if they knew I had wushu training, and there were three of them, then it’s about fifty fifty.”

Eret’s mouth had twisted with bitterness again. Linua needed to distract him. The girl who had checked Eret out at the counter came and sat at the table next to them, eying them with open interest. Linua was immediately repulsed by her—she would have been pretty, but the neckline of her top was grimy, as if it hadn’t been washed, and her hair was twisted into messy dreadlocks. She wore a heavy silver-coloured necklace with a medallion, and the way she was watching Eret was extremely irritating.

Luckily Eret hadn’t seemed to notice her.

Time to talk about the interview they’d just conducted.

“Okay, what did you make of Bead?” Linua asked.

Eret’s impressions of Bead filled several minutes, and were not flattering.

“Do you think he knew anything about the artefact, or who stole it?”

“I think…” Eret bit at his lip, which Linua found briefly distracting. “I think he bears looking into. He said a couple of things I thought were suspicious.”

Had he? Or was that Eret seeing Bead through the filter of his own dislike?

“Do you think we should stop this whole investigation here, though? He’s right. It might not be safe. Maybe we should tell your dad instead.”

“Dad might just say the artefact was lost or something. We need more.” Eret had that look in his eye.

He wasn’t going to let this go, Linua could see. She had a feeling that Pickle wouldn’t either. He seemed to relish every bit of information he kept turning up in his scrawl through the internet.

She looked out along the promenade, suddenly full of excitement and happiness. She had friends, and a mystery, and if she just kept being stubborn, even the situation with Grandmother would resolve itself eventually. A flash of pink caught her eye, but it was just a girl on a scooter who looked a lot like Anith.

No, it was Anith. She was riding her scooter along the promenade, with Pickle hanging on the back and looking around. Linua waved. Pickle saw them and pointed, leaning forward to speak in Anith’s ear. Anith came to a stop beside them. Her eyes were wide and concerned, and neither she nor Pickle seemed to notice that Eret and Linua were holding hands.

“I’m so glad we found you! Are you okay?” she asked.

Linua glanced at Eret, who gave a puzzled shrug. He didn’t know what this was about either.

“We’re fine. What’s the matter?”

Pickle wobbled off the scooter.

“We found out about the female student, Kala,” he said. “She was murdered!”