Finn’s lips pepper my face with kisses, my hairline, my jawline, my cheekbones, and then they’re on mine. His hand is on the curve of my waist, pulling me to him, and my arms are around his neck as he holds me up.

He tastes like cherries. No. Blackberries. No –

I stumble backwards. ‘Have you been eating fairy fruit?’

‘If I didn’t, I’d starve,’ he says. ‘But it’s all right. It can’t hurt me.’

Gently, he pulls me close again, wrapping his arms around me and resting his chin on the top of my head. ‘Hi,’ he says.

‘Hi,’ I reply.

Oh God, he feels so good. I sink into his embrace like a warm bath. The muscles in my shoulders that have been tense ever since I abandoned him unknot. His fingers dance at the nape of my neck and it sends sunshine spiralling through me, filling me up with liquid gold. I breathe him in, and for the first time in two weeks I feel like the earth beneath my feet isn’t about to open and swallow me whole.

‘I found you,’ he says, and the sound of his voice – his voice, his, not Tam’s – makes me want to burst into tears.

He flinches as my hand brushes his exposed collarbone. ‘Careful,’ he says.

‘Sorry,’ I say, brushing at the burn mark left by my iron ring. I blow on it gently, and he shudders.

There’s nothing but water in every direction. The stormy swell that was throwing me about like a washing machine has vanished into nothingness. Everything is calm. Everything is still. The ocean is an immense sheet of glass around us.

The water is perfectly clear – so clear that I should be able to see down to the sandy sea floor. But there is no sea floor. Down, down, down it stretches, on and on and on, as endless as the uncanny universe you see into when you put two mirrors opposite each other.

If I fell off this boat, the nothingness of the sea would swallow me. I’d disintegrate immediately, as if I’d been dropped into acid.

I cling tighter to Finn.

He laughs. ‘Still scared of water?’ he says. ‘It’s all right, I promise.’

He lets me go and leans over the edge of the boat, scooping some of the shining water into his hands. ‘Drink?’ he asks. ‘It’s fresh.’

I shake my head. He smiles and flings the handful of water over his shoulder, back into the sea. A few droplets catch in his hair, and in the setting sun, they become a crown of diamonds.

My breath catches in my throat. He is so beautiful. Too beautiful. If I look at him much longer, listen to his voice, feel his hands against my skin, I’m going to melt. My eyes will start bleeding, my ears, the sensitive skin under my finger nails, until I’m just a puddle of gore for him to rinse away, marbled streaks of red in the impossibly clear sea.

‘How did you find me?’ I ask.

‘I’ll always find you,’ he replies. ‘It doesn’t matter where you go or what you do – I will always find you.’

‘Where’s everyone else? Phil? Cardy? Holly? Julian?’

‘They’ll be fine. I’m not alone out here, you know. I have help.’

‘Even Julian? Something snatched him in the caves –’

‘Even Julian,’ he says, reaching out for my left hand and pressing it to his lips, drawing me close again. ‘He’s a prince’s pet. Someone was playing a joke on you all, but no one’s going to hurt him too badly.’

‘And –’

‘Shhhh,’ he says. ‘Can we just … have a minute? All I want to do is wrap my arms around you and not let go.’

‘Just one more question.’

He sighs. ‘All right.’

‘Did you really think I was going to fall for this?’

He stiffens.

‘I know you probably haven’t had a lot of time to study, but your Finn impression isn’t that good.’

‘Pearl,’ he says, his eyes gentle, pleading, ‘it’s me.’

I pull my hand out of his grasp. ‘No, it’s not,’ I say. ‘Want to know how I know? How you gave yourself away with the very first word out of your mouth?’

‘Pearl –’

‘That’s it. Right there.’

‘I don’t understand.’

He’s walking towards me. Every single cell of my body wants nothing more than to meet him halfway. To leap into the air and let him catch me. To wrap my legs around his waist. To kiss him and kiss him. To let him lay me down on the deck of this ship. To drink the berry taste from his lips.

But for every step he takes, I take one back.

‘If you were really Finn,’ I say, ‘you wouldn’t have called me Pearl.’

Before he can say anything else – before I can think about it – before I can doubt myself – before the terror seeps into my bones and freezes me solid – I throw myself over the side of the boat.