Lila stood on the doorstep, flowers in hand. She'd been there five minutes and they were starting to wilt in the noon heat. Finally she knocked. She heard the footsteps and the creaky board and the opening door pulled her through into a hallway that smelled of paint and garlic.

“Late,” Max said through a mouthful of something, turning to let Lila show herself in.

She went through into the kitchen and looked around in surprise.

“Tiles,” she said.

“Yeah well, they were on sale,” Max said dismissively, and gestured at the table. “Sit down.” She took the dying roses out of Lila's hand and put them into a vase.

Lila sat down obediently. Zal and Sassy glared at her from the other side of the table, pointedly. She cleared her throat. “You can stop worrying, Max. He isn't coming for you.”

“Who isn't?” Max turned around and leaned on the sink, hands wet from the water. “Oh. Ilya. You can say his name, you know. Well, he came for everyone else.”

“Not everyone,” Lila said, reaching for a piece of garlic bread.

Lila opened her eyes. She was still in the library at Delatra. She felt like someone had run the mains grid off her for a few hours. In front of her the body of Sandra Lane was cold and silent.

She could barely move. With effort she pulled her hands in front of her. She saw human skin, and her own fingers and thumbs. She pushed up to sit, a slow and painful business that made her head spin. She heard whimpering, but it was the elves that Xaviendra had enslaved, hiding in the stacks.

“You sit still now,” said an unfamiliar, business kind of voice, and she felt a hand on her shoulder. She saw a dwarf standing beside her looking concerned, his chubby hand patting her with fatherly ease. “You've had a big scare.”

She looked around for the others. Everything was black. Then she realised everything was coated in ash and soot. “Who the hell are you?”

But the dwarf had gone off and was busy pulling at a sack. She saw that it was Zal. Beside him a beastman, all fangs and claws, was on his hands and knees, panting in a fixated, self-controlled manner. Malachi.

“Don't…” she started to say, but then she realised that under the dwarf's persuasion Zal was moving.

“Fire, I said it didn't I? I said it. Fire is the path I said,” the dwarf was muttering as he hauled Zal into a sitting position and began to pat his hands. “One good turn deserves another, don't it, boy? Come on now. Come back to Mr. V.”

The wind howled and Lila winced. She looked for Teazle, or a sword. Nothing.

Under the dwarf's ministrations Zal began to babble, “Does it stand for Value?” she heard him say, his cracked lips smiling. “Is it Vain glory? Is it Visible?”

“No no no, 't'ain't none of those,” the dwarf said briskly.

Zal opened one eye, looked for Lila, saw her, and let it close again, lying flat. “Vermiform.”

“No.”

“Vanquish.”

“No. I wish it were though, lad. There. You'll be right now.” The dwarf moved back and dusted off his hands. He glanced at Lila, and for a moment his eyes might have been slitted and glowing gold, his skin a scaled green. Just for a moment.

“And it's definitely not Unloyal,” Zal rasped.

“That was just a cover.”

“Nice.”

“Rather have me eyes.” The dwarf stood back and surveyed them. “You'll do. I got to go.”

“Wait,” Lila held up her hand. “Are you…Mr. V, the dragon?”

“It's possible,” the dwarf said. He lifted an imaginary hat. “Good day.”

She saw him walk out of the doors. Her head hurt. “Zal?”

“Still here,” he said and groaned.

She dragged herself across the floor to him and lay down beside him. He felt warm, and solid and alive. Mal lay down with them, and they all slept for a short time. This time when Lila woke she saw light, very bright. “Teazle?”

But then she heard a dog bark, and the figure that came towards her from the light wasn't the demon but a tall elf with blond hair. His clothing was white and his face was younger than she'd ever seen it. “Ilya,” she said, realizing what this meant.

He crouched down beside her, and she reached up to him and saw her arm, suddenly translucent, fading as she watched it rise towards him. To her surprise he pushed it back down and held his hand out towards her. His eyes were clear as crystal; she found them compelling to look at, so pure….

“Lila,” his voice brought her back to the moment. She looked at his opened palm. A single snowflake lay there, and then there was a smaller, darker, and more impatient figure bending next to him.

“For heaven's sake!” Sassy said. She grinned at Lila and gave her a thumbs-up. “Look, you found my mirror!” She held up a pink plastic compact with a white daisy printed on the back of it, which Lila had picked up in the empty land beyond Last Water just before they were flung here. “How did you do that? Lost for ages it was. Anyway, what he means to say is that you can go back if you like.”

Lila peered slowly at Sassy. Yes it was the same girl.

Sassy flipped the mirror shut and slid it into her jeans pocket as Lila watched. Lila looked at the snowflake in Ilya's hand. It hadn't melted. In the crystal surface she saw her young self, her father, her mother, Max, the dogs, Zal, but they were just fragments. At the heart of the flake something shone with a steady, cool light. “Am I…dead?”

“Surely,” Sassy said. “I mean, if you want to be. But who'd want that?” She reached down and picked something off Lila's destroyed clothing with interest. It was a small card from a tarot deck of the elves, but Lila recognised it—Queen of Cups. “Like, aces win over queens any day, right?”

In the girl's fingers the card moved, the colours changed, the picture redrew itself and became a single shining cup, overflowing. “Ace of Cups. Look at that!”

“Is this…” Lila began, realising her mouth wasn't moving and that confused her. “Are you…?”

“A one-time offer,” Sassy said. “Yes. But no strings attached, cross my heart and hope to lie.” She made as if writing the letter x with her hand over her chest. She grinned at Lila, an unstoppable, toothy curve. “I won big today. Big.”

Lila could see around them all, she realised. She saw herself from above—a crumpled, broken, blackened shape. Zal beside her, not much better but breathing, only sleeping. Beside them Malachi also lay. He was prostrated flat on his belly in front of Sassy like the worshipper of an ancient god. Ilya knelt at their heads, and the single snowflake from the soulfall lay in his hand.

“Come on,” Sassy said, getting to her feet. “No more games. I promise. Only on your terms anyway. Probably. What do you say?”

Lila looked away from the challenging gaze of the faery queen into Ilya's clear eyes. She thought of the flicker of a possible future that she'd seen a moment before—a phase gift courtesy of the quantum flux.

Under her cheek she felt Zal's heart beating.

Lila listened for a few moments to its steady rhythm that paced out the measures and the memories and bound them briefly to the world.

What else could she say?

“Yes.”