A/N: hey guys! surprised to see me! 💗💗 i bet. im adding extra hearts for this note but i'm unsure if they will post like they do on AO3. if you see no hearts, assume ff would not allow them to show up. if you see little squares, those are meant to be hearts. tomorrow is valentine's day and you bet i'm gonna eat chocolate (as opposed to any other day lol). anyway i would like to explain what took me so long. you can skip this because it's not related to the chapter itself, i only wanted to apologise. same reasons that afflict most people who write on this site i imagine - college work and this c-stuff making things harder and generally finding it tough to be indoors 24/7 and feeling the pressures of work always looming!

in this chapter i'm teasing a lot of stuff here. astrid's powers, pruitt's role, some resolution for the end of the story. also the end will involve time travel and i'm so stuck wondering if my resolution makes sense logically ...yes in an UA fic with time travel i am wondering about these things...

so guys, i hope you're all doing well. i'm so sorry it took me so long to get this up and i always try to keep a schedule but i have been finding things tough lately. no surprise, i imagine most of the world feels the same way. if you do too, i hope things get better and again here are some valentine's day hearts for you 💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗

all the best, zed x️


after: five


Perched at the edge of Five's bed, I held my pocket-watch in my palm, toying with it. I dropped it and caught the end of its chain before it could fall to the floorboards, letting it twirl dully back and forth in my grip. Then, I held it out in front of me, focused on its beige clock-face. It levitated out from my hold, floating in thin wispy tendrils of astral energy.

In a sudden rush of frustration, I pulled apart the pocket-watch, those wisps hardening into needling tentacles which wrapped around the casing and tore it off. The energy blew from me like a ring of smoke, an echo so powerful that it billowed the curtains, wobbled the toys and books on the shelf near the wardrobe and finally slammed Five's door shut.

I ripped away its black ticking hands and still they turned, uselessly, reading a time which was not there. I plucked each wheel and cog that only yesterday I had so carefully slotted together, letting them float in balls of astral energy. I felt that I would implode, that I would be set alight in rage, if I did not do this to the watch. Pogo had not told me that Reginald turned off the machines, the agents had come to the house, the Commission was closing in –…

It was like water, flooding in, filling up the room.

I spun the watch-face in frantic twirls in front of me until it blurred and I could not tell what time it had been nor what time it would be and that felt much like it had done in the apocalypse; to not know what hour it was and not know how much time we had lost until, suddenly, it was right there in front of us.

The delicate parts of the pocket-watch fell together again, slipping into place. I had repaired it in one stroke of astral energy. It ticked soundly. It told me that I was still here even if sometimes I did not feel like it. It told me that there was too much to be done for tears and sadness.

Finally, it told me that there were five days left before the apocalypse.

x

The house had not yet roused itself. Mom was sitting, alone, in front of those paintings, where she had been left overnight. Her head lolled as if her neck had been broken, her eyes glassy and blank. They glinted like the shards scattered around the broken chandelier at the end of the staircase. I sat beside her, peering up at those women captured in oil-based paint, faces pale and disinterested.

I thought, the world is like a painting and I can see its frame.

I picked up the embroidery that she had left behind. I smoothed my fingertips across the wobbly black circle that she had stitched. I found blue thread and started to pull it through that black circle to make a lonely ballerina, her tutu smoother this time around, her arms slim like the neck of a swan and lifted above her head, which was less blobby.

From the lobby below, I heard a sigh and the sound of glass being swept. Between the railings, I could see Allison, dressed in a casual sweater and sneakers. She dragged a brush back and forth, stooping to clean the shards from the chandelier. She had only cleaned a section. She glanced at the rest of it and sighed again.

I finished the embroidery and left it there alongside my mother, wishing that she might turn her head and tell me that it was beautiful, like she had done for all the other treasures that I had brought her. But she remained still.

I remembered a mannequin, tilted in a red wagon, smiling blandly at me with lips just like hers.

x

Allison had moved into the main room of the house, picking up books with broken spines and sweeping the shattered glass there, too. The cabinets had been smashed and stuffed birds littered the Persian rugs. I almost stepped on the glittering shell of a beetle torn from its frame. Its wooden sides had been cracked.

She noticed me in the archway and continued to collect the books, stacking them on the coffee-table. I crouched and picked up those beetles, lining them in rows beside the books. It was a little odd to watch Allison clean the mess that the agents had made of the house, though it seemed she was preoccupied and simply needed something to do with her hands.

Eventually, she dropped three heavy books onto the stack, making me look up at her in surprise. She blurted out, "I know about the memory-loss."

I glanced away from her. Beneath the sofa was a scarab beetle, its black pointed head poking out, as if it hid from us. Its frame had been lost, someplace. It might never find it again.

"Vanya told me," she continued, fiddling with the cuff of her sweater. "Please, don't blame her. It was three against one. I should have known something was wrong. I mean, you seemed so distracted, that day you woke up. But Luther said you were always like that, like –…"

She trailed off, chewing at her lip.

"Like what?" I prompted.

"Like you were always in a daydream," she said finally. "And I could never tell when you would come back to us."

our mother liked to say that astrid had one foot in this world and one foot in another

Allison had never been a wallflower but she shrunk from me then. She turned to pick up the rusted vintage guns which had fallen from the cabinet. She nudged them together. I said nothing and did nothing, because I was too struck by what she had said, for all its simplicity.

In this house, we had been taught not to discuss things – things which bothered us and hurt us and afflicted us even then, as adults, things which we could not name more clearly than that because we had never been taught the words that might help us speak aloud and say: this aches, this stings, this is not a wound on my skin but it hurts.

So, we never talked about anything; not about what might have made Diego stutter like he did and Klaus ruin himself with chemicals and Luther sit in his childhood bedroom even when the others had left as soon as they had turned eighteen.

Allison found another beetle near the sofa and turned its shell toward the light. It sparked silver. I thought of an old, forgotten monocle. I could not place it and rubbed at my eyes like that might wipe the dust from my recollections. It came to me, weak and watery, that Reginald had worn a monocle and then I could recall the coldness of a wall against my back, lined up against it for an inspection. These memories pricked at my palms like astral energy, like touching nettles and soon feeling those whitish bumps that bloomed on red, sore hands. It went deeper. It hurt.

"They were here for you and Five, you know," Allison said. "It would help a lot if we knew why."

Though I had not realised it, I had been staring blankly at the wall ahead of me, unseeing, like my mother had stared at paintings without seeing the delicate strokes of acrylic paint, colour-blind to those subtle tones and hues, not even aware of the frames around them. But I drew my eyes to Allison.

Astrid was in another daydream, that was what showed in her knowing stare, a resignation breathed out in the sigh that followed. It was another feeling in me for which we lacked the right words, so we settled for others: the splitting, the daydreams, the sense of being in two worlds at once.

I said, "You got hurt because of us, Allison."

"And you could have died."

"Lived a long enough life. Well, at least my astral projection did." I smiled at her glare. "It was a joke."

"After last night, you so do not get to make jokes." She picked another book and sighed, turning its cover so I could read the title: The Extra-Ordinary Life of Number Seven. She placed it atop the others. "Well, looks like Vanya sent us all a copy after it came out. I wanted to burn mine and pretend it never existed. You read it, right?"

"Never realised I was such an asshole. Always figured that was Five's thing."

She laughed. "Oh, I knew I was an asshole. I just didn't want the rest of the world knowing it, too."

"I think you've changed."

She shook her head. "No, I haven't. But I'm trying."

I watched her for a moment, like I had watched Klaus and Diego and the others; taking in what I had missed in those sixteen years that made them seem so familiar yet so strange all at once. I sensed something heavier in her meaning and I wondered if it had something to do with her child, a little girl.

I had read about her and my brow scrunched in concentration – her name had been in the book, the book that Vanya had written and that I had spent years reading and reading, over and over again, whose pages flit in front of me as if it was in my hands, but the inky spots smudged some pages until I saw –…

"Claire."

I had spat out the name, my own mouth having betrayed me and morphed itself around the sounds without my wanting it. Allison had been studying another small beetle, its black shell glinting in her grip. She placed it carefully into the frame where she had found it, its wooden edges splintered and snapped as if it had been smashed beneath a boot. She rose to her full height to face me.

"What about her?"

"I remembered her," I said hoarsely. I cleared my throat, tried again. "I remember. Vanya wrote about her."

Allison was like a statue. "Right," she said, breaking through the marble to grit out that one word.

"You should bring her here. It would be nice to meet her."

"So she can be here when another bunch of masked freaks attack this place? No, thanks."

Her words reddened my cheeks. It had been a stupid suggestion.

"Right," I echoed.

"Look, Astrid – just –…" She touched her forehead with one hand, the other balanced on her hip. "Things have been rough, lately. Could we talk about something else? Literally anything other than Claire?"

Before I could even answer, she moved roughly about the room and threw bloodied cushions onto the sofa, collected the stuffed birds that had flown further from the coop and landed near the bookshelves, dropping them unceremoniously onto the coffee-table and knocking a few books into a sloppy pile. She cursed and finally slowed, flopping onto the sofa, ignoring the birds and books and whiskey bottles, whose contents Klaus had long since guzzled on his own behind the bar.

"You should change, Astrid," she said tiredly. "You still have blood on you."

Startled, I looked down at my shirt and saw that she was right. Some small part of me panicked and thought perhaps my stitches had ripped too. I sidled for the arch and hesitated there, glancing back at her. She had closed her eyes against the sunlight streaming through the sheer curtains. I opened my mouth to tell her about the agents and the Commission and the turmoil churning in my stomach that the apocalypse would happen no matter what we did and no sound came, because I spotted that reddish mark on her throat where the agent had strangled her.

"Sorry, Allison."

I left before she could answer, because I had not been taught how to say things more profound than that.

x

There were no blazers left in my wardrobe. Perhaps there were some in the laundry-room, still damp from where my mother had left them to dry. She would have ironed them, had her machinery not failed her. Had we not failed her, she might have brought them here, smoothed them of lint and placed them neatly on the railings. I could have taken blazers from the other rooms because the uniforms had been hoarded like all the other useless things in this house which filled it in clutter.

But I found myself changing into a fresh shirt and skirt and knee-high socks with automatic hands, buttoning, zipping, all without thinking. I took a coat from Klaus' room, army-green in colour and dotted in cigarette burns here and there. It draped around me and brushed my knees, its shoulders drooping, its sleeves rolled to the elbow because it was too long for me.

Somewhere in the fight or in a fit of sleep I had lost the daisy-patterned clip in my hair and went back into my bedroom for another. I was clipping it against my hair when I turned toward the bed and saw that chameleon on my blankets, curled tail pinned with a folded note. I climbed onto the bed and reached for it, yanking the needle that held it in place. It must have been taken from the embroidery kit, a bare inch of black thread still knotted through one end.

I unfolded the note, reading its harsh black letters: MEET ME AT ASTOR STREET – NOON. BRING WATCH FOR INFORMATION ON AGENTS.

x

Allison had left. She had knocked the neat stack of books and the little pile of foreign beetles. I rushed between rooms, hoping that I might find her again but there was no-one around. I skid into the lobby and crushed glass as I sprinted for the front door and ran into the alleyway for a car. But there were none left. I kicked at the dumpster and yanked my watch out from my pocket. I had less than twenty minutes and Astor Street was across town.

I walked out onto the street and glanced around, spotting a bicycle chained to a post. It was gaudy, painted a bright white colour with pink tassels streaming from either end of the handlebars, its pink basket decorated with flowers, its left bar adorned with a small bell. Even the helmet had been left dangling from its seat.

I hesitated, imagining the child who owned it returning to find it had been stolen. But the options were limited; it was either steal the bicycle or let the world end. So I stole the bicycle. It was one crime to add to a long list of others. I wrapped my hand in astral energy and gripped the chain, squeezing until I felt it snap and pull away.

I grabbed the bicycle, hopped onto its seat and slung on its helmet, though really I had little need for it. I pumped on the pedals as fast as I could and weaved between strangers on the sidewalk, dipping around corners and moving on muscle-memory toward Astor Street, which was less than ten blocks from the house.

Once there, I hopped off and led the bicycle alongside me. I was becoming a little more fond of it. I had never had a bicycle like it – never had a childhood which allowed plastic flowers and pinkness and frills.

I wandered back and forth along the street. It was full of cafés; strangers chatted and laughed and sipped at steaming cups, schoolchildren passed in twos and threes with arms linked, dogs sniffed at one another while owners paused at nearby magazine stands. I waited, the bicycle leaning against my side. Everything was normal. It was all birdsong and world turning and the quiet ticking of watches all around. I was not sure what I should have been looking for until it tapped me on the shoulder and I turned, lifting the helmet which dipped forward and bumped against the bridge of my nose.

It was Pruitt.

She stood in the middle of the street, her collarbone bruised in tones of brown and yellow, her left eyelid held in a tight squint from a punch that had clearly sealed it shut. She seemed out of place, like all the world moved around her but she could do nothing more than watch it, trapped, looking out from the peepholes of another birdhouse. She cocked her head and held out her hand. It did not escape me that Pruitt had glanced at the tassels on the bicycle but I could not tell if she liked them or not. It was hard to tell what Pruitt thought at all.

I pulled my pocket-watch out but held onto it, eyeing her doubtfully. In return, she held up a small note. I had become paranoid, confused too, because this all seemed too simple and too strange. She had no reason to want a plain old pocket-watch but it seemed she could not take her eyes from it. I was not sure that it was a trap either, given too many people were around and even Pruitt did not seem willing to take the risk of attracting that kind of attention to herself.

"I will hand this to you and we will go our separate ways," I said.

She nodded. I waited another tense few seconds before I did what I had said I would.

I dropped the pocket-watch into her hand and she pushed the note into mine and we moved apart, pushed by an unseen force. It was quick and abrupt and I thought that I would be peppered with gunfire or poisoned or stabbed and my eyes flashed between the strangers passing me on that street – but nothing came. I walked back to the bicycle and touched its helmet, which felt cold in the shade from the building behind me.

Glancing behind myself just once, I saw that Pruitt had not followed and so I opened the small note, across which she had written: HAZEL AND CHA-CHA ARE THE ASSIGNED AGENTS – STAYING AT 225 LUNA MOTOR LODGE MOTEL, CALHOUN – THEY TOOK NUMBER FOUR.

x

It was growing dark. The streetlights bloomed ahead of me, orange lights marking each spot that I passed, pumping madly at the pedals. There was something else that I remembered from the apocalypse and that was its stars; pure, powerful white stars in a blanket of otherwise complete darkness, because there had been no orange streetlights drowning out the skies overhead, not an ounce of light other than the flashlight that Five had carried until his batteries had run out. It was a faint, murky memory which passed quickly through my mind, because I was panicking.

I was terrified that Klaus would be dead already – that I would run to that room and in it, I would find his corpse, pale and motionless and knowing that it had been my fault he was there, mine and Five's, who had put them all in danger and who had not done enough to protect them. It brought a stinging pain to my eyes and I felt tears dry against the wind which whipped against my cheeks. I could feel it.

I was cycling dangerously, swerving onto the road if too many strangers crowded the sidewalk and blocked my path, ignoring the honk of cars and the irritated shouts. I could not think of anything but Klaus – that is, until, the streetlights flickered from orange to dull, muted grey.

I skidded, heart thumping, one foot pressed down against the sidewalk to hold me in place. It was the sensation that I was being split again, but so much worse than it had been before. I pushed off the bicycle and it toppled, smacking flatly against a puddle. I stumbled into the nearest alleyway and collapsed to my knees. I tried to catch myself, putting one hand down to soften the fall, but I fell again – for my hand had turned to astral energy and slipped like smoke through the asphalt.

In an echo, from somewhere ahead, I heard Five ask, "Would you pick this place over Griddy's?"

Frightened, my head shot up, eyes darting around to look for him between the dumpsters, which paled into purple and lightened to a powder-blue and back again. The world was draining in colour and I could do nothing to stop it. I watched the puddles mutate into inky black pools and the asphalt itself was green and the clouds molten orange.

All the world was shifting and I was dying. I was sure that I was dying because I breathed in hard rasps and I could no longer feel my hands, no longer feel the clench of my fingers, because they had turned to tendrils of astral energy and I was turning too.

I was fading.

I was still wearing that stupid helmet and had not realised it until it touched the bridge of my nose and I could not pull it off. I fell, onto my bottom. The helmet tilted back and I could see more clearly along the length of the alleyway, but its colours made no sense, each shade warping like they struggled to separate, as if paint had been sloshed together in a tin and the colours swirled around one another, about to blend but not quite capable.

I wanted to weep because I was frightened but the tears hardened and would not fall – just like they would never fall in my astral form and I thought, no, no, I am not in my astral form, I am here, I am a-l-i-v-e –…

Then it ended. As suddenly and roughly as it had started, it ended.

I could stand, albeit with tremors running through my legs. I tipped back the helmet again and realised, quite dimly, that my hands had returned to me and the colours had, too. I picked up the bicycle by its handlebars but found I could not bring myself to climb onto it just yet, so thrown that I wobbled forward through the alleyway until I came to its mouth and only then could I pull myself onto the bicycle and numbly push forward.

I moved for Klaus. I moved because he needed me. But a part of me was afraid that I would not be able to move again if another splitting came, that I would be back in that bed for another sixteen years and I would feel every one of them pass because I was in my body, this time. The halves had been reconnected but I was still not right – still not fixed.

I had warned Five not to get his hopes up and think that I could be cured simply from slipping back into my body. I had told him not to believe that my memory-loss would solve itself and that I would become the old Astrid just like that, like the turn of a die, like the shifting tones of purple to blue. I had told him I might never be right again.

If I had been the one to tell Five, then why was I still so disappointed?

x

Pulling into the parking-lot of the motel, I placed the bicycle at the side of the building and yanked off the helmet. I left it on its seat and rushed around to check the doors, squinting in the dim light to find their golden numbers. I glanced around myself, on the lookout for black suits and briefcases, the nape of my neck prickling like I was being watched.

But I could not tell if that was simple paranoia or if, somewhere in the shadows, an agent prowled ever closer. I had to climb a staircase and as I turned onto the landing, I saw that that room marked 225 was already ajar. There was a figure standing at the threshold. I moved closer, feeling that numbness in my legs bloom so that I stumbled, touching the railings beside me.

It was Diego. He was looking into the room. I was sure that Klaus was in there. I was sure.

"Eudora," he said.

I blanched, stomach dropping, mouth drying out so that I could not call for him when he ran into the room, lost in its shadowy depths. I took sluggish steps after him, stepping into the spot where he had been. I took in the room, not yet crossing its threshold, because I saw blood, trailing toward a body in the middle of the room.

It was Eudora Patch.

Even if I had never seen her or heard him say her name, I knew that it was her. Her badge was gold, speckled in blood spatter. Her eyes were closed. Diego touched her cheek and fell to her side. His face was ashen. He had never looked so much like he had as a boy, when Reginald had told him not to stutter; that we were not meant to cry or show weakness because we were too strong for that – we had to be strong.

"No," he said. "No, Eudora –…"

Sirens bloomed in the distance. I saw the flash of red and blue peeking between the buildings nearby. I felt such guilt for stepping around him and Eudora to check the bathroom, afraid that Klaus might be in there, injured and struggling to call out to us – blood spatter on his cheeks, too, blood pooling in the hollow of his collarbone like it did for Eudora.

But the bathroom was pale yellow and empty. He was not here.

I tried to touch Diego. He smacked my hand away and held Eudora closer.

"Diego, the police are coming. We need to leave."

"I can't leave her a-alone," he whispered, drawing in a shuddering breath. "I can't, Astrid, I can't –…"

The sirens were loud, thunderously so. I had that dull throb right behind my forehead and I was close to pleading with him when suddenly those sirens seemed to penetrate his skull like they had mine. He fell back, bumping blindly against the dresser, nearly knocking over a pink box of doughnuts.

My heart clenched in fear at the small sticker on its side, which read: GRIDDY'S DONUTS.

"Diego," I said carefully, "we need to go. Now."

He snatched the receipt, his eyes narrowing. He looked at Eudora. Then, his eyes rose to mine and I turned cold. It filled my limbs, drawing bile to my mouth because he looked so betrayed, so spiteful.

"I parked downstairs," he said. His tone was too calm. He did not ask what I was doing here but I felt it was coming, beneath that iciness, it was coming. "Go to the car and wait for me."

"Diego –…"

"I told you to go to the damn car!"

Flinching away from him, I did what he asked and moved quickly out into the hall, to the staircase. I had a shakiness in my legs as if I balanced on a ledge, looking down from a great height, feeling all that blood thundering in my eardrums. I could not wash Eudora from my brain either. I saw her body, her blood, mirrored in the puddles that splashed beneath my shoes. I saw her in the windows of the car, in its mirrors.

Finally I slid inside, slamming the door shut behind me, unable to think clearly enough. I jumped in fright when Diego climbed into the car and peeled violently out onto the street.

Seconds later, cop cars turned the corner and raced past us.

x

Even though the car had long since parked outside the gym where he rented out the boiler-room, his knuckles bled white around the wheel. I had struggled to think of how to speak to him; It was not what I should tell him that bothered me but how to tell him, because my mouth seemed not to want to form the words, my throat was so parched that I felt I would shrivel.

Droplets slithered down the glass of his window and he seemed to watch them, little bulbs of water. He was in a daydream. He was back in that motel, holding her.

Absent-mindedly, he wiped at his jaw and left a streak of blood. He saw it in the mirror and left it there, like an open wound of his own. He climbed out of the car and stalked to the gym. Before he could make it, he spun back and waited for me. I hovered close to him, wary that he would explode if I dared tread further.

Yet he spoke calmly, like he had in the motel room, which was much worse than if he had shouted or screamed.

"Were you there?"

I tried to match his calmness but a quiver in my voice betrayed me. "Where?"

He was watching me, cold stare alight against the neon sign behind him. "You know where. Griddy's. The department store. That was you and Five, right?"

"Yes," I answered. "Some agents found us –…"

"And how did you know about the motel? About the room? How did you know?"

"There's another agent. Or she was an agent, I'm not sure. She told me – wrote a note." I was floundering, struggling to get it all out in the right order. "I stole a bicycle, I was cycling here. I had a – a problem with my astral form. I was late."

Diego threw his arms out, scoffing loudly. "Late," he repeated bitterly. "If it had been Five in that room, you would have been a lot faster, no matter what came up."

I recoiled from him, though we already stood apart. "And what's that supposed to mean?"

The puddles glistened beneath him; the murky black water trembled as he stormed toward me, stooping so that he could look into my eyes, without the chance for me to hide from him.

"It means that you have always cared more about Five. Ever since we were little kids, you had this stupid little fantasy in your head that you two would run away together, that you would leave the Academy. Real romantic. To Hell with the rest of us, though, right? What did we matter? Because you loved Five. You still love him, no matter how screwed-up it is, no matter how damn screwed-up he is – and you. You're just as messed up as him."

It stung badly. This is his pain talking, I told myself, his grief. But it was more than that. It was all the pent-up rage that had started building the moment I left that house and leapt through the portal.

"He wasted sixteen years of your life," he continued. "He is the reason you were trapped up in that room, all because he was too cocky to listen to the old man when he told him that he couldn't do something. And if it had been me jumping into the future, would you have followed? Maybe, maybe not. But I bet Five never had to doubt that you would."

He let out a mean, bitter laugh that shivered right up my spine.

"The funniest part is that what you feel for Five isn't love, Astrid. It's habit. And a damn bad one, at that."

I was biting my tongue between my teeth, grinding it like the glass had been ground beneath my shoes that morning.

"Habit," he said again. "Because all you do is follow him around and fix his mistakes. You did it when we were kids and you're doing it now, because it's the only thing you know how to do. Hell, I do the same damn thing. Try to save you, try to save Klaus, try to save Mom. But that isn't love. It isn't supposed to be a tally of saving each other."

Those words scratched at me like the silver cuts of light against the window behind him, like a monocle scraping and scraping at me and all my self-control was slipping away from me, like a golden chain that I had not managed to catch and which clicked against the floorboards. He moved away from me. It did nothing to squash the breathlessness in my chest, the sense of being surrounded.

"What would you know? You were raised in that house too, Diego," I said.

Really, though, I wanted this all to end, for him to stomp off and cool down and let me think, because it felt like that pressure was building up in me as it had that morning, a heavy prickle in my palms. I touched my pocket-watch and tried to take comfort in it, but the guilt was swelling, the regret bubbling behind it.

"Yeah, and look how I turned out, right? Well, Eudora showed me how messed up our childhood was. How messed up our lives are," he spat. "And you know what else she did? Huh? She taught me that when someone loves you – I mean really loves you – they don't ask you to destroy yourself for their benefit. They don't ask you to drown so they can stay afloat. They don't ask you to do that. I used to think that was cheesy, used to think that she read it somewhere and she was just repeating it. But she was right. Five let you drown so he could stay afloat. He always said he was selfish. Guess he told the truth about one thing."

I swallowed against the hardened knot in my throat. "I made a choice to follow him," I said. "I made it, Diego."

"God, you're still defending him.," he snorted, shaking his head.

He took two steps toward the door and then rounded back again, as if he had wanted to drop it but it was pouring out of him.

"You didn't choose a damn thing, Astrid. Five made a choice and your only option was to clean up after him. And you're denying it because you don't realise how messed up our lives are. You know, other kids weren't sent to fight criminals shooting up a bank. They weren't asked to save hostages in a store. But I shouldn't be so hard on you. Got your head all screwed up, didn't you? That was Five's fault, too. Seeing a pattern here?"

He took a few steps in a circle, aimless and restless, fists scrunching against the leather of his gloves.

"That isn't fair," I said weakly.

"You sound like Luther." He sniffed, roughly rubbing at his nose and shaking his head. "Fairness, justice – you know who fought for that? Eudora Patch. She fought for that her whole damn life. She believed in it, too. She believed in me – and look where that got her."

"You never could have predicted this, Diego. There was nothing that you could do –…"

"But you could have done something. Those guys in the masks, they wanted to kill you, Astrid. Eudora just happened to be there instead. The way I see it, it should have been you in that motel room. At least you would have stood a chance against them."

He leaned close again.

"What chance did she have?"

"I'm sorry."

He ignored it.

"You know what Luther and I did today? We went looking for Five. We wanted to find him before those freaks did. Know where we found him? Drunk, in a library. While the rest of us were fighting for our lives, he got wasted. I told you – selfish. This whole thing is game to him, a power-trip. He doesn't care about you, Astrid. You had to fight those agents, you had to clean up his messes, you had to suffer the most from his mistakes. He's letting you drown."

There was silence between us and I hated that he would not look away from me, that he was so sure of himself when I was crumbling in front of him.

Because I could not think what else to say, because I had no defence, because I was not deserving of one, I said again, "I'm sorry, Diego."

His scoff cut through me. "Right. Sorry. But not as sorry as Five will be."

He stalked into the gym. I heard the door clatter shut behind him like it shot through me, woke me from a daydream – another daydream, head in the clouds, one foot in this world and one foot in another, head too screwed up.

After all that had happened, I was still that child Vanya had written about; selfish, oblivious, messed-up.

x

Luther had brought the car around. Five was sitting in its passenger-side, pale-faced. Diego had not been kidding, because I recognised that greenish tinge to his skin. I had seen him recover from hangovers enough to know it. I sat in the backseat and Luther told me that Diego had slipped out through another exit in the gym. He also said that Five had told him everything that had happened in the apocalypse and what that Commission wanted.

I sank against the doughy seat, its shape lost with age. We cruised slowly through the street. Five watched me through the mirror. He had something on his lap. He pushed it through the gap in the seat to hand it to me. Its cover was worn, colours faded, the faintest outline of the astronaut still clear. It was not our copy because it was too clean; its inner-slip read PROPERTY OF ARGYLE LIBRARY.

I glanced up at him, meeting his gaze in the mirror. We were too tired and worn out to talk anymore. Luther tried to tune the radio.

Cyndi Lauper crooned through the static and he quickly turned it off.

x

The wooden beam scraped against my shoulder and left a streak of dust behind. I brushed it off and sat at the window-sill, overlooking the garden. I pulled the book about the astronaut from my pocket and flipped to its first page, which had been torn from our copy. I skimmed through the information about its publication. It had been written in the sixties by a young author named Arthur Harrow in a period of cold-war paranoia, last checked out from the library a couple of months ago, its pages warm and ochre in colour.

I read the first chapter and had turned to its second when I heard the wooden beam shift.

Five stooped beneath it and stood on the other side of the room,. For once, he seemed unsure of himself, like he thought I might send him away. We said nothing and only watched each other. Then, slowly, he came toward me and reached out to cup my cheek, angling my face toward the watery blue light to check the purple line beneath my eyelid, the faintest bruising. His hand was warm, his touch was gentle.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Sorry that I wasn't in the house when the agents attacked. Sorry that I didn't protect you. Sorry that Eudora Patch died."

I said nothing and his hand fell away, nodding like he had expected it. He slid onto the window-sill across from me and touched the shrivelled-up, blackened strip of wallpaper peeling in a heavy fold beside him. Idly he pulled at it, his face clouded. It was odd to sit in our old hide-out, in our thirteen-year-old bodies, with that childish fantasy of running away from home lingering in my mind. I looked at the loose plank beneath which we had hidden our treasures.

Diego was right. It had been nothing but a childish fantasy.

I asked, "Do you think we love each other, Five? Like – like really love each other?"

The question startled him. He accidentally ripped too large a chunk from the wallpaper. It fluttered in a limp roll to the floorboards. Because Five had not been taught to talk about things either, he curled like that wallpaper beneath his shoes, furling in on himself. He swallowed, a thick bob of his throat, like the words had gotten caught right there where a mole marked his pale skin.

He almost had it; he almost spoke. But then he looked down at his lap and sighed and I knew that whatever it had been, it was gone.

"What kinda question is that, Astrid?"

"Just something Diego said earlier. Doesn't matter."

But it did matter. It was all that mattered. He knew it, too. Only the words had been lost, so he talked about something else.

"I was so close," he said. "So close, Astrid. I went to MeriTech this morning. I brought that guy from the lobby, the guy we talked to. He was selling eyeballs on the black market. And I thought if I could just get him there, I could find the buyer and know who ends the world. But the building was gone. It had been set on fire."

"The agents?"

He ran a hand through his hair. "Probably. I thought I had it, that I would fix everything. I would make things right."

"I was going to look for you."

all you do is follow him around and fix his mistakes

I rubbed my eyes. "I was going to look for you," I said again. "But I got a note, telling me to go to Astor Street at noon for information on those agents. It was Pruitt. She wrote a note to tell me where the agents were staying. They had Klaus."

Five seemed surprised. "Klaus? Diego said they killed Patch. He never mentioned anything about Klaus."

"The agents didn't get me and they couldn't find you," I said. "So I guess they took Klaus as the next best thing. I'm not sure what brought Patch to that motel."

He nodded, though his brow was furrowed in that way that said he was thinking hard, attempting to connect the dots even if he did not yet have all the pieces.

"Why would Pruitt help you?"

"She wanted my pocket-watch," I said.

If it had been any other day, I might have laughed at how he frowned even more. "What for?"

"I don't know. Nothing about this watch is any different from the others I've ever made."

Five groaned. "Do things ever get less complicated for us? Can't we just go back to that week before I tried to time-travel?"

I let my legs dangle from the edge of the window-sill, shifting around to face outward into the room. I kicked the heel of my shoe against the wall, a muffled thumping sound that resembled the ticking of a watch and I thought about that week he mentioned, which I remembered muddily. I felt the book about the astronaut cutting into the skin of my stomach from where it remained hidden in my waistband and thought it had all come down to that. If I had never found it, never given it to him – maybe things would have been different for us.

Luther was in the hallway, a few doors away from us. "Five!"

Five groaned again, more loudly. "And the day gets even better."

"He might find the hide-out."

Even if the room was empty and dusty, it was still ours and meant enough to us that Five relented and stood. He leapt through a sudden ripple of blue light, vanishing. He left the room dewy in the glow of his portal. I stared at it, somewhat memorised by its winding tendrils and wisps that resembled astral energy. I tried to recall that sensation of jumping through his portal, the first time that I had ever done it. It had been in this room.

It had felt like falling.

x

I found Klaus in his bedroom. He was curled on his bed. Somehow, he seemed healthier than he had in days. His skin had a peachy tone, his hair was brighter and curlier. He was lying on top of his blankets but had not yet fallen asleep. I hesitated at his door, afraid that he might hold the kind of anger for me that Diego did. But when he saw me, he smiled, seemingly glad to see me. He looked unharmed, too, not a scratch on him. Confused, I crossed the room and took the spot beside him.

"I thought those agents took you," I told him.

"They did," he said. "Got back here a half-hour ago. You can thank your friend for me."

"My friend?"

"Red-headed girl, I don't know," he said. "Didn't get much time to talk. She helped bust me out. But we got separated. Seemed she had some grudge with those masked guys. Think they knew each other?"

It was asked bluntly because he already knew. "Yes," I answered. "I think they do."

He hummed. "Well, she saved my ass. But then there was this detective and – look, Astrid, I just want to take a nap, all right? Could we do this later?"

Klaus never wanted to sleep. He usually went to great extremes to avoid it, plugging himself with all sorts of drugs to stave off sleep. Yet he fluffed his pillows and snuggled further into them.

"I'm sorry," I said hoarsely.

"Why?"

I gawked at him. "Because the agents kidnapped you, Klaus. That's why."

Klaus shrugged. "Oh, that. It's okay."

I scooted away from him, balancing at the edge of the bed. "It's okay?"

"Sure."

Strangely, it felt much like it had days ago, in my room, laying down and looking at each other. He had lain beside me and we had talked before we play-fought and fell off the bed. Only there was no light-hearted mood, now. Instead, he seemed contemplative, though his eyes were heavy and tired. I doubted that the agents had let him sleep and so I felt a sudden guilt for disturbing him like I had. But I was struck by the oddly warm tone to his skin. His eyes were not bloodshot, his hands were not shaky, he looked at me and not around me.

"Klaus," I started tentatively, "are you… all right?"

"Never better." The strangest thing was that he sounded truthful. "I'm fine, Astrid. Just want a nap, like I said."

"Okay." I hesitated and said again, "Okay."

I worried that he had only wanted to send me away but that had not shown in his face. He had truly wanted to sleep. I lingered outside his door and listened for sound. I heard nothing other than the soft bounce of his bedsprings as he turned. I sloped toward the staircase, daring to glance back at his door.

I wished, for what seemed like the hundredth time that day, that I had the words to say more than just 'sorry'.

x

The chandelier was still broken, cracked on the ground. I was even more confused than I had been all day. Pruitt had helped Klaus – or at least, she had tried to help him. But why? Why had she helped him and why had she wanted the watch when it was no different than any other she could find in a store? I had made it myself but it was otherwise a plain, beige-faced watch.

I stepped through the shards, wandering in an aimless circle around the chandelier. To make things worse, I did not know what had brought Eudora to the motel nor where the agents had gone nor what had caused the splitting that happened in the alleyway earlier.

I nudged some glass. Five was right to wish things would become less complicated for us, for all I saw were shattered pieces of what had once been whole and I was trying to glue them together.

"Astrid."

It was Pogo who had spoken. He stood beneath the yawning archway which led into the kitchen.

He seemed older again, hunched forward and hobbling toward me with his cane tapping out each step, pushing aside stray glass. Slowing in front of me, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a pocket-watch of his own; his was shattered and crushed inward, so that it could not be opened, its chain gnarled and twisted.

I stepped toward him, the scuff of my shoes the only sound in all the house, which had settled into dust and loneliness like it had done for the last sixteen years. The casing had once been golden but had been dulled and marked. If we had made it together, then I could not remember it.

"My study has been destroyed," he said quietly. "All the watches are broken; books torn apart, furniture smashed."

I stared at him, throat tight and aching. I thought of Pruitt but I was not willing to tell him about her just yet. I feigned uncertainty, studying the pocket-watch, and asked, "You think those masked guys did it?"

"I spoke with Master Luther earlier," he said. I heard something in his tone, something which drew my eyes to him and held them there because I did not like the sound. "He informed me that you were made aware of what had happened with the machines – of what happened with your heart. And that I had lied to you."

"You hardly think I would do this to your study?"

He did not answer. I felt the familiar lick of rage rolling up through my palms, like it had that morning in the bedroom, when I had ripped apart the pocket-watch for nothing more than a release. I was hurt and tired and smarting already. He was adding salt to wounds that had been here since childhood, festering and aching.

"I am aware that I have deeply broken your trust in not telling you about what Reginald did all those years ago," he said. "Surely you must wonder why I did not tell you."

"I didn't destroy the pocket-watches, Pogo," I told him. I wanted to ignore what he said about Reginald, about those machines. I had had enough for one day. "I would never hurt you like that."

"But I hurt you, Astrid. I know that with the pain of losing Grace, as well –…"

The mention of my mother sparked even more anger and it seemed there was nothing in this world but me and him. The chandelier had melted into the tiles, the archways had stretched upward to a point where I could not see them, swallowed in the blazing white that seeped into my peripheral and made it hard to tell him apart from all the rest of it. I had a lot of anger in me but I never meant for it to be directed at him.

But like Diego, it seemed to pour out on its own accord, before I could stop it. I was drowning in it. I did not want to talk about it, not after I had sat beside my mother and stared into cold blank eyes, not after learning that Reginald would have let me die in that bed, not after –…

"Yet I lied to you," he continued. "I have always considered myself different from Reginald in that respect but I lied to you."

I swallowed against the hardened knot in my throat. "Stop it," I said.

"I lied because I wanted to protect him," he said.

Deflated, all that anger left me in a smoke-ring like it had in the bedroom that morning; only it was much more gentle, this time around, tinkling the glass which had not shattered from the chandelier and the curtains behind him ripped slightly, like a faint chill had rolled through from an open window somewhere. He seemed neither pleased that I had not done worse nor did he seem disapproving.

"Why?" I asked. "Why would you want to protect him?"

Pogo swallowed. "He was my friend – my master. He created me. He gave me many opportunities."

"That's it," I said doubtfully. "That's why you protected him?"

He hesitated. "Reginald believed that if your body was put in great peril, it would attempt to reconnect your astral form with your body in order to save itself. I did not agree. I had other theories. Theories about the pocket-watch, about sound and how it had previously demonstrated a profound impact on you while in your astral form. He was not willing to base your life on theories, Astrid. He wanted something practical."

"I know you stopped him."

"If I had waited a moment longer, I do not think you would be here in front of me as you are. But nonetheless, I have let you down. I should have told you about the machines. I should not have let you believe that those lapses were an unexplained phenomenon. I certainly should not have allowed you to think it was the result of anything you had done." He placed that mangled pocket-watch into his tweed coat. "For that, and so much more, I cannot apologise enough."

I watched him warily. "You pushed me on purpose. Why?"

He straightened, his cane balanced in front of him. "I mentioned that Reginald believed you to be powerful, Astrid. I share this belief, as you well know."

"So, what did you want to happen? You wanted me to destroy everything like you think I destroyed those watches?"

"I never once thought that your power stemmed from its destructive capabilities," he said. "But rather from your control over what has the potential to be destructive. I also never believed you destroyed the watches, though I suspect you know who did, or at least have some inkling. You and Number Five are involved in something far greater than I first imagined. I worry for your safety. Have you had any other – complications?"

I thought about the changing colours in the alleyway; the sense of falling from the edge of frame, out from my painting and into another.

"No," I said. "I'm fine."

"So," he said, "I truly have broken your trust."

"What do you mean?"

"You are a capable liar, Astrid," he said solemnly, "but you have never been capable of lying to me. I am afraid that, in breaking your trust, I have caused irreparable damage."

I held out his pocket-watch. "You haven't."

He looked doubtful.

"We can make more watches," I said. "We'll replace them all. I'm going to see what they did to your study."

Though I walked ahead, without ever glancing back at him, I could tell that he was watching me. I could tell that he knew I had no reason to check his study other than wanting to witness what had happened to it for myself, to sift through its destruction and know that it was another piece of collateral in what Five and I had started.

x

The ground was mushy and soft. I stormed through the green doors and marched into his study, but the door jammed, caught on the piles of paper strewn about the floor, so that I had to squeeze through the gap. The lamp on his desk had been toppled and its yellowish light shone toward the broken pocket-watches scattered across the rugs, showing their wheels and cogs and forceps and chains all around.

I stepped across his books and crouched to lift the shards of the teapot, smashed against the floorboards.

The pocket-watches ticked quietly from their mass grave beneath me; those of them that had not been fully broken, their casings not torn off or crushed. It was a soft and comforting sound that contrasted the ruins of his study. There were slashes in his sofa, its hollow frame peeking out between the slits in the fabric. I dropped the shards. I was very tired and wished I had taken a nap with Klaus. But there was not enough time for it anymore.

We were screwing up. It was no longer about fixing Five's mistakes but running in circles to fix my own. What Diego had not quite understood was that I was as much to blame. Or perhaps he had understood it and tried to shirk everything onto Five because he did not want to think I was capable of causing him so much pain. But I had been capable. I had done more than he wanted to acknowledge.

In the mess, I saw Vanya's book peering out. Its spine was heavily lined, like most books in here. Pogo must have read it more than once. It brought me another lashing of shame because he thought I was powerful and strong and I wanted nothing more than to curl up and ignore the world – to let it end.

Though even that was not true. I did not want it to end and I would do what I could to stop it.

So I shoved aside the pocket-watches, moved out into the hall and went back into the garden, intent on finding Five to make a new plan. We had to do something because so far we were being hit from all sides. I saw the statue of Ben, my eyes skimming its words. I was still reading them when I heard the doors ahead open with a whine, turning on old hinges. I thought it might be Five and so I did not turn right away. I should have.

Then I might have seen Pruitt aiming for me, taking her shot.

I heard the crack and flinched, thrown by the sound which ricocheted through the garden and stuffed up my eardrums. I awaited pain but none came. She was yards from me, her face held in spite, the first expression that I had ever seen on her. She was still aiming, one hand clutching her gun and the other holding onto the pocket-watch that I had given her.

But it was not swinging on its chain – it was perfectly still. I thought it was happening again: another splitting, another turn from blue skies to mutated purple.

"Astrid, how wonderful to see you again. You look so…corporeal."

The Handler stood behind me. She smiled, waggling her fingers at me. Five was standing beside her, his face stricken, his eyes on that bullet which hovered close to me but which remained suspended, moving in fractions. I stepped away from it, stunned, finally understanding that the Handler had stopped time, a briefcase in her grip.

"I have an exciting proposition for you both," she said. "It could be just like old times. Right, Five?"

"Give us a minute," he said tersely.

Her smile was tight. Her gaze drifted to Pruitt and down to the pocket-watch in her hand. "Interesting," she murmured.

There was a faint pop of sound. She disappeared.

Without her, Five seemed a lot less tense. He marched across the grass and clamped his hands around my arms to pull me even further from that bullet. It had been aimed low, probably for my shoulder or arm. I doubted Pruitt would miss and found myself wondering if she had even wanted to kill me.

I shoved him off. I had seen the Handler as another one of his mistakes, something that I would feel forced to fix and if it had not been for what Diego had said, I might not have felt so strongly about it. But I had wanted us to fix it – me and him, together, taking it as a team and accepting we had enough fault to share.

"What the Hell did you do?"

"We don't have much time, Astrid," he said. "For all I know, they're still listening. So I need you to trust me and say you'll accept the job she's offering."

"No."

Five had smoothed his blazer and righted his tie. His hands stilled and he watched me, incredulous. "What?"

"No," I said. "Not until you tell me how the Handler got here and why the Hell you would ever want us to work with her again."

"Astrid," he said, his tone dangerously close to scolding, which only set me off further, "she's offering us a good deal here, one that could solve our problems. She could be back here any second and we don't –…"

I was holding firm and he could tell. It brought a dimple to his cheek but not in a smile.

"Fine. I found out that Klaus time-travelled. He stole the briefcase from those agents and he was gone for an entire year. I knew those agents would want their briefcase back so I had Luther take me to meet with them."

"Why didn't you tell me? I would have gone with you –…"

"I couldn't find you."

His jaw twitched, his eyes left mine and looked at the statue behind me. He was lying.

Capable liar, I thought, but never capable of lying to me.

"I didn't want to find you," he grumbled reluctantly. "Because I already put you in danger. I already left you to fight those agents and I already ask enough of you and I'm afraid if I keep doing it, you'll start to think –…"

"Think what, Five?"

"That we don't love each other." He did not look at me but angled his head in my direction. "I know what Diego said because he said it to me, too. At least, most of it. I imagine he used less expressive language when he talked to you."

I sighed. "Five – …"

"That day in the apocalypse," he said suddenly, "around the time we first got there. You heard Diego. Do you remember it?"

It was vague and blurred but I nodded.

"You could see him but I couldn't," he continued quietly. "You were running, trying to communicate with him. And I thought you would make it back. I wanted you to make it back. I was running with you and I fell. You came back for me. Even though it was only a scraped knee, you came back for me."

The sunlight haloed his silhouette. His face was momentarily lost to shadows.

"I don't know how to describe love, Astrid," he said. "You would think with all the poetry we read as kids that I could muster up something more but I don't want to cheapen it by quoting dead poets. Just – when you came back and tried to help me even when you couldn't, not in your astral form – I just mean –…"

He cleared his throat, his posture awkward and exposed.

"I don't know how to describe it. But I know that I felt it then. I know that I feel it now. More than ever." His shoulders softened and he finally looked at me. "The Handler is offering us positions in management at the Commission. I know that it isn't what we planned or what we want. If you have any other suggestions, Astrid, I'm willing to hear them. But right now, it is the only way I know how to keep everyone alive – to keep them safe. To keep you –…"

He trailed off and I could tell he was irritated, not only from the possibility of working with the Commission again, but because he had been too emotional. He clammed right up again, shoving his hands into his pockets.

"We're running out of options and I had to think fast," he said. "We take this job and the agents stop hunting us down. They stop threatening our family and we buy ourselves enough time to think about what we can do."

"Fine."

He blinked, surprised. I imagined he had expected an even longer fight but settled for drawing himself to his full height. "Okay."

"But I have one condition."

His eyes narrowed. "What?"

"She lets Pruitt live."

"If we had been a second later, she would have shot you, Astrid," he said flatly.

"She was aiming for my shoulder. She might have even missed. Do you really think someone like Pruitt would miss?"

"I don't care," he bit out. "She took the shot. Doesn't make a difference to me."

"She saved Klaus."

He was torn. Finally, he said, "All right."

"Good. Because if the Handler wants us to work for her, she'll let Pruitt go."

"Fine." The Handler had reappeared and sat on the bench beside Ben's statue. She cocked her head at me and smiled brightly. "I can let Pruitt off the hook. Give her another chance to run before she is – inevitably – caught. Only so many chances a girl can get, right?"

Five met my eyes. He had been right to worry about her listening because we could never be sure that she ever really left us at all. But we had little choice and so I allowed her to approach me and hold out her hand. We shook twice. She had not stopped smiling once and on the second shake, she pulled me that little bit closer.

"Welcome back, Number Eight."

x

The offices within the Commission were a chorus of typewriters clacking and workers chatting and carts rolled to put stamped papers on desks. We walked at such a brisk pace that I could only glance into the rooms which passed us by. Even if my memory-loss meant that I was unsure of what I could retain, I tried mentally mapping out each twist and turn in the sprawling hallways.

I wondered if the Handler was purposefully taking a long route but soon she began calling out names for offices and workers alike, in a drone which showed she cared little for either. Five, though he presented a casual front with his hands in his pockets and a slouch to his frame, stayed close. Occasionally, he bumped his arm against mine; it was not an accident but rather reassurance.

She led us down a hall which was painted in a powder-blue colour. At its end was a large wooden door, much larger than those around it. She opened it and I saw the tallest man hunched on a wooden stool, a loupe strapped around his head as he moved his forceps close to the rounded piece of glass on the table. He picked it up.

"Theodore," she called.

He jolted and dropped the piece of glass. I caught it for him before it could shatter, holding it in a soft ball of astral energy. It was automatic and I had not thought about showing that in front of the Handler. Five kept his face blank, though the Handler smiled again. I had come to loathe that smile. I left the glass on the table and the man nodded his gratitude.

"Theodore," she said again. "You remember Astrid, don't you?"

It clicked that I had met him. He stood, towering over all of us. But he held himself like a shy, quiet man, keeping to the other side of the room where the Handler might not reach him. He had been in the apocalypse – at its end. I could not remember too much beyond that.

"Astrid will be joining you," the Handler continued. "I believe she has quite the expertise in this area herself. Come along, Five –…"

"Wait –…"

Both Five and I had spoken at the same time. We glanced at each other and he nodded. I said, "We thought we would be working together."

"Why did you think that?" She clasped her hands together. "It was never stated and never put forward as a condition."

She turned on her heel and marched back out into the hall. It left a forlorn moment to be drawn out between Five and I in which neither of us knew what should be said or done. We could not let her win nor could we think we held too much power over her. So, I reached out and pulled his hand from his pocket to squeeze it, just once.

"We'll meet up later," I said. "Can't keep us apart forever."

He smiled. It was faint and full of resignation and gone before the Handler could turn and spot it. He was not willing to give her anything more than what she had already taken from us.

Theodore shuffled into the hall, following them. I stood beside him. He watched the Handler and Five disappear, turning a corner. It was hard not to marvel at his height. He had peeled back the loupe. He was awkward, hulking in his size.

Theodore let out a small breath, one I had not known he was holding in until his tall body sagged and he relaxed against the wall. He looked down at me and it was a lot like how it felt with Luther, craning my neck to see him.

"There are tea-breaks," he said gently. "Lunches, too. Oh – sometimes people retire and we have parties and cake and – and I guess you'll be able to see each other then."

He smiled and I decided his was much nicer than the Handler's. He did not need to duck his head to walk back into the room, which explained the size of the door. I looked down that hall, lingering on the spot where Five had last been, before I turned around, intending to follow Theodore. But I noticed the plaque overhead the door, which glinted bronze and dull.

It read: THE WATCHROOM.

x