David and the professor sat in silence. Having made his entrance, Professor Feldrake appeared to have difficulty knowing what to say. He opened the box of chocolates and put it on the bed. Then he helped himself to one.

“Coffee cream. My favorite! I can’t manage the toffees anymore, not with these old teeth. Would you like one, David?”

David waved the chocolates away. “Professor, what happened exactly?”

“Ah. I was hoping you wouldn’t ask me that, because we’re not one hundred percent sure. There are a lot of questions we’re hoping you can help us answer.”

“But we did win, didn’t we? We stopped Adam?”

“Yes, David, we did. You did!”

“And what about Adam?”

“Not a sign. Not for two weeks now. In fact, the Haunting has been keeping its head down. Without them hounding us we’ve been completely free to work in peace: deep historical research missions, archaeological intervention … bliss! But as for Adam, well, he hasn’t been detected since they picked him up fighting with you. Given his age and the extraordinary power of your attack, even if he does recover it’ll be far too late for him to bother us again.”

“Professor, what happened to Eddie? He was injured, badly I think, on a ledge.”

“Relax, David,” said the professor. “Don’t forget, though it may feel like you were just there, we’re talking about events that actually took place many, many years ago. Your grandfather survived — after all, you’d hardly be here now if he hadn’t, would you? We can fill you in on the details when you’re better.”

“But I need to know now!” David sat up straight. The professor tried to push him back.

“All right, all right,” said the old man. “It was Kat and …”

“Tomkin!” said David. “Kat and Tomkin were Eddie’s friends. Funny name, Tomkin.”

“Some sort of nickname, I expect.” The professor looked distracted for a moment. Then he continued. “Anyway, yes — Kat and Tomkin contacted the police, and Eddie was taken to hospital. On the police files it says he was injured during an air raid. When he was discharged, he went out to live with his mother at his aunt’s house, and the rest, as they say, is history. It’s remarkable how resilient the time line can be.”

“Kat and Tomkin!” David smiled. “They seemed really interesting, but we hardly got to speak. I wonder what became of them.”

The professor put the chocolate box down.

“I’m afraid they were … unlucky.”

“What does that mean?”

“Just after they brought help to Eddie, they were caught in an explosion. On their way to an air-raid shelter, I understand. I’m sorry to say Kat was killed instantly, and her brother … well, the Archive tells us precious little about either of them.”

David’s smile died. He felt numb. He’d always known that thousands had lost their lives in the London Blitz, but it felt altogether different now that he’d met some of them.

“It’s part of history, David,” said the professor. “Try not to get too involved. It’s not for us to question what’s already happened, remember? I know it sounds hard, but Kat wasn’t destined to survive the Second World War, that’s all. A great many weren’t.”

David shook his head.

“And someone else died,” he said. “I saw it. A man called Grinn.”

The professor shrugged.

“Again, he only had a few months left to live anyway. As I said, the time line is a tough old thing. Even the great Adam Lang couldn’t do more than dent it in the end. Thanks to you.”

“So Eddie’s okay?” said David after a moment. “Was okay, I mean. I can’t wait to see him again, but I suppose I’ll have to find some other time and place —”

“David.” The professor’s voice had a hint of warning in it. “You shouldn’t think about dreamwalking yet, your mind is still very weak. But more than that, I’m afraid there’s no question of visiting Eddie again.”

“But —”

“No.” Professor Feldrake held up his hand. “According to the time line we’ve fought so hard to preserve, Eddie’s ghostly visits stopped after his house was destroyed in the fire, and that’s how it’s going to stay.”

David looked away. In his mind he’d already decided to go and visit Eddie again on the quiet, but when he looked back at the professor it was clear the old man knew exactly what was going on in his head.

“Forget it, David. After this scare we decided to use the Inhibitor on Eddie. You remember the Inhibitor, don’t you? It blocks all dreamwalking around a given time and place? Well, we’ve applied it to every single point in Eddie’s life, including the theater attic, now that we know about it. There’ll be no more ghosts for Eddie. His life is locked into its own time, and no one from his future can ever go back and interfere with him again.”

“I wasn’t interfering.” David frowned. “We really were friends, you know.”

“I know, David, I know.” The professor’s voice lost the hard edge it had acquired. “But history comes first. And even the greatest friendship has to come to an end sooner or later.”

David was silent. He was angry to be blocked like this, but he also remembered what Petra had told him in the tunnel to the château, and somehow the simple thought that Eddie was still out there somewhere was a comfort — on a different part of the time line from David, yes, but not so very far away when you thought about it.

“Anyway,” said the professor, rummaging in his pocket, “after your arrest, Sir Edmund’s study was thoroughly searched, and this was discovered. I’m positive it wasn’t there before, so it’s very real and concrete proof that some changes to history did occur. It’s addressed to you.” And the professor handed a sealed paper packet to David. “Naturally, no one has opened it.”

The small packet was surprisingly heavy. As David tore it open, something slid out and landed on the bed. It was a bone handle with cruel steel ends. David felt a sensation of horror as he recognized it: the knife that Charlie Grinn had flung into Eddie’s back. Holding it carefully, he pressed the small steel switch, and the blade flicked out.

The professor jumped.

“This blade,” said David, turning the metal in the cold hospital light and enjoying the professor’s discomfort, “nearly destroyed us all.”

“Good heavens,” said Professor Feldrake, as pale as a ghost.

David put the knife down and reached into the packet. Inside was a letter, in the steeply sloping handwriting of an energetic but elderly man. It was written on a page torn from a notebook and dated to just a few years ago.

Dear David,

Please accept this grisly keepsake. It is a reminder that our existences are fragile, a fact that has certainly helped concentrate my mind over the years. Now, as my time is coming to a close, I would like you to have it, to remember me by throughout your own life. And may it be a long and happy life too.

We didn’t say a proper good-bye. Of course, I realize now that we could never have met again, but at least this simple piece of paper can do what science and dreamwalking no longer can — finish my apology to you and allow me to express my thanks for saving my life, and for something else too. But first, the apologies.

David, though I have long since dedicated my entire life’s work to you, I’m both ashamed and sorry that I couldn’t have done more after you were born. Given that your early dreamwalking experiences and my own disturbed childhood were so intimately tied up with the foundation of the Dreamwalker Project, the risks to the time line were deemed too great for me to make contact in the present, and I bowed to this ruling like a weak old fool. I am a lousy grandfather, as well as a doubting friend, and I apologize.

With even greater bitterness, I must also apologize for my failure to prevent the death of your father, my son. Naturally I would have done anything to save him, regardless of the consequences, but I simply couldn’t remember or didn’t understand enough from that terrifying night on the rooftop to prevent Adam’s admission into the Project, nor the sorry string of events that led to our terrible mutual loss.

Because of these failings, I hardly deserve the enormous gift you gave to me when we last met. David, thank you a thousand times over for that first taste of dreamwalking. The recollection itself was almost obliterated from my mind by the stresses of the moment, and I have struggled to recover the precious memories of those events ever since. But that brief point in time, high above the city with our united minds unconstrained by the confines of physical law, was the defining moment of my life and the foundation of everything I have done since.

David, thank you.

Edmund Utherwise

David lowered the page and stared at the knife, not knowing what to say. The professor was clearly itching to see what was in the letter but was too polite to ask. Instead he helped himself to another chocolate.

When David looked back at the letter, something bobbed into his mind — a jumble of recent memories, fragments of fact, and unanswered questions that were finally resurfacing in the troubled sea of his memory. Only now he could see the connection between them, and it was a connection that made his eyes go wide. He lowered the letter and stared at the professor.

“David, what’s wrong?”

“I think I know who it is!” he blurted out. “The person behind all this. The King of the Haunting! Professor, it’s —”

“No! Don’t say it!”

David’s eyes went wider still.

“You know, don’t you? You knew all along! But why … ?”

“I suspected, David, that’s all. But if we’re right, then there’s nothing we can do, is there? That person’s history is too closely entwined with Eddie’s now for anything to be done about it, not without enormous risk to ourselves.”

“But, Professor —”

“No. We have no choice but to keep our defenses up and wait for time to rid us of that particular threat. Until then, I urge you to keep any suspicions you may have to yourself. Tell no one, David, is that clear? Don’t even tell the other dreamwalkers.”

David stared at the professor. Could he really just say nothing? But then, it all seemed so incredible that maybe he’d got it wrong. On the other hand, if he was right, and if the professor really was too scared to do anything about it, then there was one thing he could do himself, wasn’t there? At least being stuck in a hospital bed gave him time for a little private dreamwalking. It was certainly something to think about.

“How are the others? Dishita, Théo?”

“Oh, they’re mostly fine,” said the professor, clearly pleased that the conversation had moved on. “There were some casualties, as you’d expect, but we’re lucky not to have lost more. Misty is back up and running too. Théo says hello, by the way. Says he’s looking forward to working with you again. And Dishita is singing your praises to anyone who wants to hear. She has asked to debrief you personally. I think she’s desperate to hear more about your battle with Adam. We all are.”

“And Petra?”

The professor frowned.

“Poor girl.” He sighed. “It’s a terrible shame. Such a loss to the Project.”

David felt his spine go cold. The professor was helping himself to another chocolate when David lost his cool completely.

“What do you mean, ‘loss to the Project’?” he shouted. “She’s a person, not one of your machines! If she’s dead, or —”

“Dead!” said the professor in surprise. “She’s not dead! Good heavens, no. It’s just that … well …” But the old historian seemed to have run out of words.

“Look,” he said eventually, “there’s someone else here who can explain it better than I can.”

He got to his feet and put his head out of the door. After a moment he stepped back. A girl wearing a long winter coat and sunglasses walked in.

It was Petra.

“Hello, David,” she said, with a smile almost like her old one. “I’m glad you’re awake.”

“Hi” was all David could manage.

The professor rocked back and forward on his heels and looked awkward again.

“When I said ‘loss to the Project,’ I was referring to Petra’s injury. PPD, you see — Psychic Projection Disorder.”

“You science guys,” said Petra. “Just call it what it is: burnout. What the professor is trying to say is that I can’t dreamwalk anymore. Adam did too much damage. I’m no longer a dreamwalker.”

David was shocked. He tried to think of something to say, but when he began to speak, Petra stopped him.

“Don’t. In some ways it’s quite liberating actually. I’m free.”

The professor looked at them both.

“I’ll give you two a moment,” he said, stepping toward the door again.

“Wait,” said David. “You haven’t told me how Roman is doing.”

The professor seemed bewildered. Then he saw the look on David’s face.

“Don’t be too hard on Roman,” he said. “You didn’t see him at his best, and the pressures on him were very great. In the aftermath of the Adam Lang emergency he has even been awarded a medal, and I’m pleased to say he mentioned you in his acceptance speech. I realize you might find that a joke, but Roman cares for Unsleep House very deeply, and he’s a better judge of people and events than you might think.”

“Better than my dad?” asked David, fixing the professor with a steady gaze. The professor sighed.

“All right,” he said, “all right. I apologize for not telling you about that.”

“But he was murdered! And I had to hear it from Adam, of all people — his killer.”

“Oh, I was worried that might have happened.” The professor was clearly distressed. “David, I’m really very sorry. We just didn’t know how you’d react if you found out during the emergency. Your father was a key member of the Project, and we also felt his loss very bitterly. We couldn’t imagine that he’d been murdered or that one of the dreamwalkers was capable of doing such a thing. I suppose everyone was so dazzled by Adam they never stopped to question the effect his work was having on him. Everyone except your father, that is. Oh, dear. I promise that when you have recovered, I’ll tell you all I can about your father.”

David lay in his bed and said nothing. Petra gave the professor a disapproving look. The old man seemed desperate to get out of the room. He stood and picked up the box of chocolates.

“I’ll just go and see if your mother would like one,” he said and darted out of the door.

Petra had taken off her sunglasses and David could see signs of strain in her eyes.

“I still need these,” she said, waving the glasses. “But I’m much better, really. Don’t look so worried. I like your teddy bear, by the way.”

David went red with embarrassment and threw the old toy at his mother’s bag, which was still by her chair.

“My mum brought way too much stuff.”

“Well, she has been coming here every day,” said Petra.

“Every day?”

“You look surprised, but I don’t see why. You are lucky, David Utherwise,” Petra said, and perhaps because these words were more revealing than she’d intended, she gave him a brief flash of her mischievous smile. David smiled back, but he couldn’t quite meet her eyes.

“Petra, I don’t know what to say.”

“Then say nothing.”

“But I could have stopped him, I could have hit Adam harder, got him away from you.”

“You did all you could. Even now you don’t give yourself enough credit for what you have done. You won, David: You defeated your Goliath. I believed in you all along, and I was right to, wasn’t I?”

“But you’ve lost … so much,” said David, wishing he could think of something better to say.

Petra gave him a stern look.

“Not as much as Carlo or Siri or some of the others.”

“What will you do now?” David asked eventually. “Leave Unsleep House?”

“I’ve been thinking about it. I have some money, and the Project look after their ex-dreamwalkers very well. I might travel. I mean really travel — taking my body with me this time. Perhaps I will even try sunbathing. I’m not sure what I have to stay for, and I don’t miss dreamwalking as much as I thought I would.”

“But you do miss it.”

Petra looked at him.

“I have been offered a job. On the linguistics team at Unsleep House. They always need language teachers. So, I have the chance to stay, and maybe I will. At least for a while. But I’m still deciding …” Petra let the sentence trail off. “They’ll ask you, you know. You are still dreamwalker number five until you tell them otherwise. You are going to have some decisions to make soon.”

“I can really say no?”

“Yes, you can,” she said, watching him closely. “You have a home to go to, remember? If it helps, I hear they’re planning to make some changes after what has happened, to go back a bit to how things were in your grandfather’s time.”

“A few more windows would be nice,” said David, “and I think Roman needs to go on a long, relaxing holiday. Perhaps he could go with you.”

Petra made a face but laughed.

The door opened, and the professor put his head around.

“Sorry, Petra, but we ought to go. The helicopter’s ready. Good-bye, David — get well. We’ll speak again very soon.”

Petra nodded and made to follow the professor out. At the door she turned back to David and gave a small wave.

David felt the urgent need to say something to her, but he just couldn’t think what. His ears were hot. He blurted something out.

“I’d like to see you again soon.”

“Ha!” said Petra, looking down her nose. “In your dreams!”

David was crushed and embarrassed, but then he saw the mischievous look again.

“I meant that,” she said with a smile. Then she put her glasses back on and stepped through the door.