Her eyes caught sight of a series of insect boards across the room on the far wall, her eyes drawn to the smallest one. On it were secured moths of different sizes, shapes, and sizes; Viv couldn’t have said exactly why it caught her attention, but when she had once seen it, she couldn’t look away. This time when she headed toward it, the room let her get to that wall, so she must have been going the right way. Viv found herself standing in front of a small pinboard of moths that had been arranged and labelled, and that had been affixed to the pinboard without actual pins. Their legs and wings and bodies were all perfectly preserved, although there was no glass over them, and none of the dust had touched them.

  Luca obviously took very great care of these dead things.

  Viv took the one that had a sheen of purple to its feathery antennae, placed it carefully in one of the small boxes that were on a nearby tabletop, lined with cotton-wool, and put the box in her front right pocket. If it wasn’t what Luca wanted, then it was his own fault for sending her in here with imprecise instructions.

  She was half afraid that she wouldn’t be able to get back out of the room when she turned around to see where she had come from, but Viv could still see the door there. It was even open a crack. She hurried toward it, relieved and still with a sense of urgency that she needed to get to Gilbert before the Forex agents saw her and discovered that she had the memory stick that they were most likely looking for.

  But when she pushed the door open and hurried out of it, Viv stumbled into deep, confusing darkness that immediately obscured and perhaps removed the door by which she had entered it. She was not, Viv was very well aware, breathing shallowly air that was somehow familiar, still in the Tea House.

  She could have tried to dash back the way she had come, but a glance over her shoulder was met only by darkness, so Viv instead took a deep breath and checked that both of the items she had removed from Luca’s little stash were still in their respective pockets. They were, so she took another breath and then reached out with her left hand somewhat tremblingly.

  Viv wasn’t aware of how tight her jaw had clenched until her hand touched, snatched away from, and then once again reached out to a familiar, cool wall. Somehow, she was in the upper galleries again. And if she kept going with her left hand against the wall, walking up and around in an anti-clockwise direction, she would eventually circle up and into the light again.

  Why Luca’s secret room had spat her out in the manor near the treehouse, Viv couldn’t begin to guess. Luca had said that he would find her when she had what he wanted—he hadn’t said that she would enter the room in one place and exit it in another.

  It took only a minute or two for Viv to start spiralling up into light again. She kept her hand against the wall and kept walking until she saw the treehouse, however; and somehow it wasn’t surprising to find that the door was already open for her, with Gilbert’s head craning around the doorframe.

  “Viv!” he called when he saw her. “I thought I heard someone coming! I’ve just made tea! Gorman showed me how, but only if I pretend I can’t do it when he’s around so that he can keep making it.”

  Viv laughed and joined him in the treehouse without giving herself a chance to stop and look down this time, either. She was so tired now that it felt a little as though she had been drinking. There had been too much night-time running around; she needed sleep.

  “Did you come to visit me?” he asked. “I have nice biscuits this time!”

  “Why not?” said Viv. “A bit of tea and a couple of biscuits would be nice. I needed to talk with you, anyway.”

  He made her sit at the table and brought her a cup of tea very carefully, as though he had never done it before. Perhaps he hadn’t.

  When they were both sitting at the table with their tea and biscuits, he asked her again, “Did you come to visit me? I’m not supposed to have visitors at night.”

  “Not exactly,” Viv said. “I did find something today that I think is yours. I was going to bring it to you tomorrow but I found myself here unexpectedly.”

  She took the memory stick out of her back pocket, where it had been stretching the cotton pocket, and felt a roughness under one of her fingers. A small, etched symbol was there, two circles made up of concentric but irregular circles with odd out-cropped lines that turned them into tiny mazes that linked in one small curve of each. It was similar to something she had seen not very long ago, but she wasn’t entirely sure what.

  Viv held it up so that Gilbert could see it, but she saw no recognition in his face as he gazed at it.

  “It’s mine?” he said, but it was a question. “Why?”

  “I think it is,” she said. “I think someone took it, and that you don’t remember them taking it.”

  Gilbert stood and reached out to take the memory stick, his face open and innocently curious, and in the moment before he took it from her, Viv saw the small circular mark that his shirt cuff had hidden—a mark that was identical to exactly half of the symbol etched onto the memory stick.

  She thought the mark glowed momentarily, then Gilbert was standing perfectly still with the stick in his hand and his expression frozen, as though it had trapped him in time as soon as he grasped it.

  He dropped so quickly that Viv didn’t have a chance to catch him, slumping over the table with a rattle and a splashing of tea, and then sliding onto the floor in a rattle of teacup and saucer.

  “Sugar!” swore Viv, leaping up and dropping to her knees beside him. She was far too tired. She would never have done things so suddenly if she’d thought about it for longer, or with more of her brain awake.

  She turned Gilbert over onto his back, but it didn’t seem as though he had hit his head. His hand was still tightly clenched around the memory stick, however, and Viv couldn’t make him release it. After a little while she stopped trying, worried that stopping whatever was happening now would do more damage than the thing itself was doing.

  She sat with Gilbert for what seemed like a torturously long time, but was probably only half an hour or so, before his eyes began to flutter and his fingers released the memory stick. Viv grabbed the stick and put it back into her pocket, relieved and worried all at the same time, then she helped Gilbert to roll over onto his side.

  For a few seconds she thought that he was choking, and curling in on himself in the paroxysms; but a moment later Viv realised exactly what was happening.

  Gilbert was crying. Huge sobs that wracked his entire body and made his breaths nearly as loud as cries of pain. Perhaps that’s what they were. Viv patted his back and chafed his upper arms where she could, and slowly the storm seemed to quiet and then stop, until Gilbert was sitting up instead of curled on his side, rocking back and forth with his arms wrapped around him.

  Viv stayed with him for it all, until he stopped the rocking, and said, “I’ll get you a fresh cup of tea.”

  “Thank you,” said Gilbert, and his voice was deeper than she remembered it being.

  She had only just got to the stove when Gilbert pushed himself up, swaying, and looked around the treehouse like a drunk man.

  “Sit down,” she said. “I don’t think you should be standing up right now.”

  “I shouldn’t be alive right now,” he said.

  Then he turned and lunged out of the treehouse, almost too swiftly for Viv to gather herself up and run after him. When she tried to open the treehouse door, the handle wouldn’t even move, and as though a huge weight rested against it.

  “Gilbert?” she said cautiously. “Are you all right?”

  Had she completely miscalculated? Was Gilbert as unstable and dangerous as Jasper had warned her he was, even with all of his memories?

  But the voice that came through the door was gentle and apologetic, and she could still hear the pain in it.

  “I’m sorry,” Gilbert said. “I just…I can’t trust you not to make things difficult. I don’t know who I can trust right now with Forex in the house, and I know that’s not fair when you gave me my memories back, but I can’t help it. I’m not what they say I am, but I know you can’t trust that, either. The shutting spell will unravel when morning comes. I promise you won’t be stuck in there longer. There’s bedding under the table.”

  “Gilbert,” began Viv, but there was only silence. “Gilbert?”

  She went over to the window, but he was already gone. There was a new pit of dread in her stomach. Had she made the wrong decision? Had she returned Gilbert’s memories to him only to have him turn over everything he knows to Forex?

  She didn’t think so; he seemed genuinely afraid of them. But Viv couldn’t help worrying, either. It felt just as wretched to be mistrusted by a newly restored Gilbert as it did to be mistrusted by Gorman—especially when she didn’t know what she’d done to deserve it.

  Viv rested her head against the windowpane, for a moment so tired that she couldn’t seem to lift it again. Then she sensed rather than heard movement behind her, and spun with her hands already in fists, her right leg dropping back.

  Luca was climbing out of the cupboard above the window near the bathroom; he dropped to the floor lightly, and stretched like a cat his shoulders flexing and stretching a shirt that was both dusty and grimy. His jacket, which had obviously been rolled up under his head, unfurled and fell on his head.

  He emerged from the jacket, grinning at Viv. “I didn’t expect him to do that,” he said.

  “What are you doing in here!” hissed Viv. “How did you get in here? What if he comes back with Jasper?”

  “I’ll get back in the cupboard,” said Luca. “You can come with me, if you like.”

  “I’m not the one they’re trying to catch,” Viv told him.

  “Are you sure?” asked Luca, still grinning. “Because this treehouse is locked up pretty tight. I’m not going anywhere until the morning, and neither are you. We might as well get some sleep and worry about Jasper and Forex in the morning.”

  He was right, and it was late, and by the time they had found all the bedding and pulled it out, and fought over who would let who use the small pallet, and decided that it would be fairer if they both used it, both she and Luca were yawning.

  He picked the spot in which they put the pallet—close enough to the front windows that they couldn’t be seen by anyone approaching the house from the galleries, and far enough away from the door to avoid the draught that crept beneath it.

  And when they were both lying on it, with a sliver of space between them and the odd, soft silence of the treehouse around them, Viv said, “I took two things out of your room.”

  There was the swift movement of Luca’s head turning. Viv turned her head to meet his eyes and added, “Sorry. But I saw the memory stick and I knew that I had to take it as well.”

  “I didn’t expect that,” Luca said, still gazing at her. “You’re a lovely Viv. It’s nice of you to be unexpected sometimes; it’s like getting a surprise present.”

  Viv thought of the moths, and the tapes—the outdated green-screen computer and the old television set that had crackled with life even though it should have been completely dead. “Why do you have so many dead and obsolete things?”

  “I like little dead things,” said Luca. His eyes fluttered shut. “They make a soft murmur all around the room. They’re peaceful and solid, like tiny tombstones. And they make the world look different just by being themselves. What did you bring me?”

  “I’ll give it to you tomorrow,” Viv said.

  She didn’t expect Luca to agree, but to her surprise, he only said, “All right,” and lapsed into silence.

  “A Forex agent was on the sixth floor this morning, or I would have got it more quickly,” she murmured. “Sorry. I was afraid she’d be able to get in if I went there while she was around.”

  “I closed it up so that you’re the only one who can get in,” said Luca. “There’s only ever one way in, and I made sure that you were the only one who knew the way, and who could get in.”

  “Only one way in doesn’t sound very safe,” Viv said. “What about when you need to get out in a hurry?”

  “I said there was only one way in,” he said. “There are a lot of ways out.”

  “Is that how I ended up here?” Viv asked, in sleepy wonder.

  “I told you I’d find you,” he said. “But I knew it would let you out as near to me as it could.”

  “That’s cheating,” said Viv, and perhaps she drifted off to sleep for a few moments.

  When she was next aware of time and reality, she could sense movement from Luca’s side of the bedding. She blinked a few times and saw that he was rhythmically tapping each of his fingers against his chest in a swift, continuous, silent motion.

  Luca was trying to keep himself awake—to guard them, or to avoid nightmares, Viv wasn’t sure which.

  “Go to sleep,” she said thickly. “No one can get in here, either, anyway.”

  Luca’s pale hazel eyes were smudged with purple shadow. “The nightmares can,” he said. “The spiders can.”

  “I won’t let them,” Viv told him.

  “That’s what you say,” Luca argued, turning his head to gaze at her. “And you’re so solid and Viv that maybe you can stop them, but if you fall asleep with me you’re going to be in my dreams and then I’m going to have to watch you die.”

  “If I end up in your dreams I’ll be having a word with the spiders,” Viv said, rather grimly. “And luckily for you, I won’t be a dream—so you can trust that I’m going to be able to take care of myself even if you can’t get to me. Anything else is your mind lying to you. Go to sleep.”

  She pretended not to notice when Luca’s hand reached out to hold her cardigan.

  And after that there was just a warm muddle of thoughts and impressions, where Viv was only vaguely aware of pain in her neck, and of moving toward warmth; of a willing arm under her head in place of a pillow and the amelioration of pain.

  She saw, or perhaps felt, spiders crawling, and said aloud, the words slow and fat in her mouth, “Go away,” and the world became soft and still enough to allow her to fall thoroughly into sleep.

  Chapter 12

  Today Is The Day

  Maybe it shouldn’t have surprised Viv to find herself in a glittering dream where the sky was pale yellow and the grass pink-tinged. All of the flowers were blue, thousands of them nodding and dancing to a breeze that swept through the field and made Viv feel just like she had felt in the upper galleries of the manor where the treehouse was.

  Luca was sitting down in the grass not far away, his legs crossed and his elbows on his legs, nearly chin-deep in blue flowers.

  “There you are!” he said, jumping to his feet. “I told you.”

  “There aren’t any spiders,” Viv pointed out. “I got rid of them before I came here.”

  “They’ll come back.”

  “Apparently, so will I,” she said. “Is this your fault?”

  Luca look faintly guilty; but he said, “There’s a fifty percent chance that it’s either of us. Maybe it’s both of us.”

  “Where are we?”

  “Some people call it Seelie, but it’s part of what humans call Behind. It’s only a dream copy, though.”

  “That means it might get unpleasant, but it can’t kill us,” Viv said, hoping that she was right.

  “Yes,” Luca said, but his smile was shadowed. “It might get very unpleasant, though. The ones that might kill you are a lot more realistic than this. Here, it’s just field. It’s Seelie field, but it’s just field. It might have a remembrance of what this place looks like, but not much else around—especially since it’s from when I was very young.”

  “What about the dreams that are in places that are so right and real that you can’t tell you’re dreaming at first?” Viv asked him, feeling a trace of dread in her stomach as she remembered the rocking shadow in the corner of Jasper’s room.

  “Those are the ones you need to watch out for,” Luca said. His eyes flitted over her face, and he said, “What’s wrong, Viv? What have you seen?”

  “Nothing,” she said. She didn’t have any right to share what was in the depths of Jasper’s room in his nightmares, no matter how dangerous they were. “I suppose it’s a good thing that I’ve had a chance to get some practise with nightmares lately, then. Maybe this place has some walls we can use.”

  Luca grinned at her as though he was proud of her. “That’s the spirit, Viv!” he said. “There are no walls, but sometimes that’s not the important part. We’ll be safe here as long as it stays bright. We only have to worry if it goes dark.”

  But it didn’t get dark, to Luca’s obvious surprise and to Viv’s great satisfaction. She wasn’t quite sure how it happened, but before long they were sitting together in the shoulder-high flowers, and Luca had his head in her lap again, looking up at her drowsily. It would take very little for him to fall asleep here in his dream, Viv realised. Perhaps then he would get some real rest.

  So Viv let herself rest a hand on his head to stop herself from actually stroking his hair, and asked him softly, “What’s the go with the spiders, anyway? You don’t like them, but you keep bringing them along with you every time you go through Between.”

  “That’s a secret, Viv,” he said sleepily, smiling up her. “They’re a useful way to get through Between when Between is locked up because someone doesn’t want you getting in and out.”

  “Like here,” she said.

  “Not here,” Luca said, his eyes flitting around at the world beyond her. He yawned. “Back in the manor. Here is…different.”

  “Maybe I should have tried to steal some of them,” Viv said, more to herself than to him. “I thought I could get through Between, but it turns out that I can’t really.”

  “Of course you can’t get through Between,” Luca said. “What made you think you could?”