My sleep is deep and dreamless. I wake earlier than I’d have liked, though, at five and forty after midnight. I panic for a second when I first realise I’m not in my familiar dormitory at the Academy, or even my old room before that. But it’s fine; this is where I’m meant to be; nothing is wrong.

  I lie in bed for another half an hour, hoping I’ll drift back to sleep, but too many unwelcome thoughts appear in my mind for that to be possible. The monster. The anomaly, and the way it saved me from an active episode. I suppose I was feeling the frustration and despair that seems to cause it, but I didn’t think it would be more powerful than Malaina.

  And it didn’t save me before, that day in the library with Mildred. I feel bizarrely short-changed by that. But more importantly, I need to understand why. Was it some difference in the two situations, or my reactions to them? Or has it gained more influence over me since I’ve discovered it and used it?

  Stars, I hope not. I wish I understood it and knew how dangerous using it would be.

  I wish Edward was here to talk to about this.

  But he’s not. I’m alone. Maybe I should have accepted his invitation after all. I’m not going home, not really, and I don’t know what I’ll find instead.

  Too late to change my mind now, I suppose. It’s six and ten now, so I give up my fruitless attempts at more sleep and drag myself out of bed. There’s very little packing to be done, since I didn’t unpack anything except clothes for the night and this morning. So I just wash myself with the basin and water provided for that purpose.

  I’ve been spoilt by the Academy’s enchanted basins warming the water, I realise quickly. This water is icy cold, and the shock of it is not a pleasant one. I wash perhaps less thoroughly than I should as a result, and am still shivering as I dress.

  Then I repack the rest of my clothes and head downstairs for breakfast. The inn’s common room is near-deserted, and I take advantage of that to take it in properly. It’s decorated in the style of a hunting lodge, complete with a stuffed deer’s head staring down at us in silent condemnation. It seems plain and small, but I’m probably just too used to the grandeur of the Academy. I make a note that I shouldn’t try and make that kind of comparison to wherever my dad is staying now.

  The innkeeper is bustling around between the kitchen and the common room. She appears just after I make it downstairs. “Morning, miss… I didn’t catch your name last night?”

  That kind of friendly greeting isn’t supposed to lead to panic as a response, but it does. If I tell her my real name I run the risk of her mentioning it in front of one of the other travellers, but if I introduce myself as Alice again there’s the chance she could wonder why there’s no person by such a name in the guest register.

  After a heartbeat too long of hesitation, I decide on the latter risk. “Alice. And you are?”

  “Amanda Jones. People call me Mandy. You sleep well?”

  No sign of concern about my identity. “Yes, thank you.”

  “Suppose you’ll be wanting breakfast? I’ll have it out to you before too long. How do you take your eggs?”

  “Fried, please. If it’s not too much trouble.”

  “Nonsense, it’s my job. Speaking of which, should go check those sausages.” And she’s gone again. Her good cheer is infectious, and I find myself smiling as I take a seat to wait.

  The others come down gradually over the next half an hour. I trade good-mornings and how-did-you-sleeps with them, thankful that most of them seem too tired or too shaken by yesterday or quite possibly too hungover for any more conversation than that. I’m feeling surprisingly awake, actually, and the horror of yesterday is no more than a memory. I’ve survived worse than that.

  I’ve finished eating by the time the last of our party appears, and I slip away back to my room while no-one is looking. Not that I have anything to do there, but at least it’s quiet and there’s no risk of awkward questions being asked.

  I’m very tempted to go back to A History of the Kings of Rasin, but there’s only fifteen minutes until we’re supposed to meet by the coach to load our luggage and prepare for the journey. So I’m scared I could lose track of time and end up being left behind. My hand still twitches involuntarily towards the spot in the backpack where it’s tucked away. In the end I adopt a childish habit and sit on my hands while I stare into space for the next quarter-hour.

  Then I return my room-key (still no-one notices the discrepancy between the name I’m going by and the one I used in the registry) and load my suitcase onto the coach. We set off promptly at eight after midnight.

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  The morning’s journey is thankfully uneventful; our worst problem is Matthew insisting that he needs to use a bathroom until we’re forced to stop the coach and let his mother take him into the (thankfully non-haunted) woods beside the road. About three hours after we set off, I begin to see familiar scenery: we’re entering the suburbs of Crelt.

  It’s extremely familiar, in fact. Between my not having been here in months and the different vantage point, it takes me a little while to realise this is the route I always used to walk to Genford. Which means we should be passing the school itself shortly – yes. There it is. I recognise the playing fields where I spent many a miserable hour pretending that I had non-zero aptitude for and desire to play sport.

  The feeling is a strange one. I don’t know why it bothers me so much, but part of me feels as if I’m about to walk back into Genford and go to class as if nothing has changed during the last few months. Charles First-King, I think, feeling my heartbeat quicken. I’m never going back there. They wouldn’t take me even if I wanted to, not now I’m Malaina. I have to supress bitter laughter at that thought.

  A few seconds later, we pass the main entrance itself. It’s deserted; of course it is, it’s the school holidays. I don’t know why I expected otherwise. Time kept passing there, life went on without me. I wonder how many people noticed I was gone. I wonder what the gossip mill made of my episode and subsequent disappearance.

  I always knew there was something odd about that Tallulah girl. It was only a matter of time before she snapped, really.

  Can’t say I’m surprised. Her sort doesn’t belong here anyway.

  Edwin the Just. Simon the Drunkard. I thought I’d accepted that the fact Genford wasn’t the right place for me wasn’t my fault. But the imagined taunts still sting.

  I’m never going back there. It doesn’t matter what any of those girls think of me anymore.

  I keep telling myself that until the school has vanished behind us, and suddenly we’re approaching the city walls. We’re nearly there.

  My dad and I arranged by letter that he’d meet me as soon as I got off the coach and take me to the apartment he’s renting until something more permanent can be arranged – he says that once he gets his share of the divorce settlement money shouldn’t be as much of a problem. It feels strange to think of my parents being divorced. I always thought that was something that happened to other people.

  It's hardly the strangest thing that has happened to me recently.

  I’m a little afraid that my dad won’t be there. Part of my mind is already making contingency plans for being stranded alone in Crelt. I’m trying to decide whether I should go to my dad’s office and find out why he vanished and beg him to let me stay or give up on him and try and get back to Ryk to stay with Edward when the coach finally grinds to a halt just outside the city walls.

  He’s there. I see him immediately, leaning awkwardly against a lamppost and waving. He sees me too, and smiles. I hope I’m smiling back. I am glad to see him, really, it’s just…

  I don’t hurry to get off; I let most of the others go first while I stretch my stiff legs and check that I have everything, even reluctantly putting A History of the Kings of Rasin back into my bag. Then I jump down and go to fetch my trunk.

  Except my dad has already lifted it down for me. Our reunion is a sudden one; we almost walk straight into each other, and blink in surprise for a moment.

  I recover first. “Hi, Dad,” I say. “I missed you.” I’m not lying. Really, I’m not.

  “I missed you too. So much. I’m sorry about… everything.”

  He holds out his arms for a hug, and after a moment’s hesitation I let him embrace me. I relax into his arms, close my eyes and pretend that I’m a child again. That he can keep me safe from all the world’s problems, that I’m safe as long as he’s hugging me.

  Safety seems such a fragile, temporary thing now. I wish…

  No. I don’t. If you asked me to go back to being the girl who hadn’t Fallen, I wouldn’t do it. I can’t ever be that person again.

  I open my eyes and pull away. “I’ll take the trunk,” I say, reaching out for it.

  He doesn’t give it to me. “You don’t need to. I can carry it for you.”

  It would be significantly easier for me to carry my own trunk, now that I’m a good enough magician that I can partially levitate it and make it feel far lighter, but I realise that’s not the point. I can carry it for you. I can take care of you. I can be a good father.

  “All right,” I say. “Thank you.”

  “Let’s go, then. It’s only a ten-minute walk. Probably not as fancy as the last place you were staying, but it’s a roof over our heads.”

  I’m not the only one keenly conscious of the difference, then. I force myself to laugh. “Unless you’ve somehow become part of the royal family recently, I think it would be pretty much impossible to get fancier than the Academy.”

  He laughs back, breaking a little of the tension between us, and we set off. The streets are familiar ones, but they seem narrow and plain compared to those of the Inner City. But of course the architectural style is several centuries later, and this city was never designed to be a royal residence (not that that’s prevented it from being one during both Civil Wars).

  It scares me how quickly I’ve become accustomed to something that’s completely out of the ordinary. How much I feel like I belong there rather than here.

  I think for a while we’re going to the trade streets and the offices of Roberts and Bryant, but as we’re approaching the edge of that district my dad turns suddenly left into an unfamiliar road. Waterford Street. I still can’t escape General Elizabeth Waterford, it seems.

  “This road?” I ask.

  “Yes.”

  It’s an unremarkable one. Mostly homes, but we pass a bakery; the smell of freshly-baked bread drifts out from its windows and makes me realise I’m definitely going to be paying that shop a visit before I leave again. My dad stops three doors down from it. The house isn’t naturally pretty, but someone has gone to the effort of putting flower-boxes on the windowsills and growing bushes in the tiny front garden so that it looks less dreary than it otherwise would.

  “Well, here we are,” my dad says, fishing a key out of his pocket and unlocking the door. “Top floor. There’s the landlady and two other tenants. We mostly keep to ourselves, but there’ve been no problems yet.”

  My presence could well be the cause of those problems, I realise. All it takes is for one of the other tenants to be anti-Malaina or hate the Blackthorns more than most or just be too persistent in asking questions, and then…

  It will be fine, I tell myself firmly as I step inside.