21:42.

Bring on fifteen years of sleep. Callum collapses into his desk chair. In his pocket, his phone quacks, and he yanks it out. Gods of whatever, let it be Kira.

It’s not. In a slump of disappointment and a stab of concern, he slings the phone to his desk. Dammit, Kira. It’s been far too long.

The quacking stops, and restarts at once. Callum rolls his head toward it, on top of dog-eared photocopies and dissertation notes. It’s a UK country code.

A sleepy interest stirs. Callum bats the phone onto his knee. They’ve got ten seconds to prove they’re not a wine merchant, a weirdly specific wrong number, or a relative from Scotland.

‘Hello?’ Yawning, he spins around on the chair. The flight was delayed, the train was delayed, and it’s snowing. Snowing. In Spain. Jesus.

‘I…’ the person on the other end tries.

Callum yawns again. ‘Hello?’ he repeats, eyeing his rumpled bed like a rösti. The interest is disintegrating; he’d really rather sleep.

He has time for a stretch, a thought of a snack, and a full look of longing for his two duvets, before the caller stutters her way to a sentence.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says. She sounds as steady as a twelve-year-old boy, breaking voice aquiver. He’ll give her ten seconds, or maybe even twenty. Just because she’s so damn slow.

‘Why?’ Bouncing on the springs of the chair, Callum idly flicks a folder named “Morality in The Divine Comedy.” And, tatty and bitter underneath, “The Bible and Ethics.” It’s the biggest regret of his life, and the bane of his existence. There’s probably some irony there, for Professor Santos to hate.

‘Because…’ The girl gulps, and swallows. Callum hauls his attention back to her. Her seconds are tick-tick-ticking. ‘Are you Callum Reeve? I’m really sorry. To call, I mean. To call like this.’ She swallows. He can hear her lips, her tongue, her breath; the sounds of someone fighting for calm. Tick, tick, tick. ‘I’ve been told to, I guess. Advised to. I’m not sure. I don’t know.’ She takes a deep, shuddering breath. ‘I don’t know anything.’

Intrigue drips through Callum’s fatigue. Raising the back of the swivel chair, he kicks his feet up to the bed. The girl has passed the attention test; he’d like to know why sentences are so hard.

‘Who is this?’ He stifles another yawn. Time to play detective. ‘You’re English, right? Who told you to call me? Someone from the UK?’

Lips, tongue, breath, teeth. Thick earrings clink against the phone. The sound harks back to most of his girlfriends. Callum’s intrigue is marred by a twinge of concern.

With another long, slow sigh, the girl clears her throat. ‘Kira.’

Callum goes rigid.

‘Kira told me to,’ she says. ‘Kira McFadden. She said I need to go to you. She didn’t tell me why, or who you are, and I don’t know what’s happening, but she said she’s in trouble. I’m in trouble, too, but apparently hers is worse. I’m sorry.’ Her words grow harder, high, frustrated. The earrings clink and scrape. ‘This explanation is shit. Problem is, that’s all she’s told me. I don’t understand what there is to explain.’

Callum’s hand hovers over his folder. ‘Go on.’ His eyes burn holes in the mottled carpet. Her tremulous breaths sound more and more like carefully managed hysterics. Kira’s in trouble. Two hours after he warned her, after he heard about the huldra. He could have been there. He should have been.

‘She sent me a message.’ The girl is speaking again. Callum makes his mind slow down, and listen. ‘We were on the phone, and something happened. On her end. I don’t—I don’t know what, I’ve no idea, but I heard a load of distorted noise, and shouting, and—and a while later she messaged.’

She swallows again, breathes. One, two, three, vibrato. One, two, three, again. ‘Just once, about an hour ago,’ she continues. Her rising voice is a tad more controlled. ‘I’ve been trying to call her ever since, but it gabbles in Dutch and cuts me off. Every time.’

‘Read me the message.’ Removing his legs from the bed, Callum slowly leans forward. There is a pause, a fumble, a series of taps, and her tinny voice returns like wind in a tunnel.

‘She forwarded your contact,’ the girl says. Callum holds the phone closer to his ear, resting his elbow on his knee and his mouth on his fist. A suspicion is sneaking in, and it’s not one he likes. ‘Then said, “Call him. Tell him I said you need to go to him. I’m in trouble. Probably more than you.”’ She clears her throat. Her voice is a leaf. ‘“I’m leaving now, and I’ll try to get to you, but if—if it’s okay, stay with him until I can. He might be able to explain what happened at Harvey’s. Same thing just happened here. Run, Romy.”’ She inhales shakily. ‘“Something’s coming for us.”’ She puts the phone back to her ear, clinking. ‘That was it. That was the last I heard. Does it make—’

‘You’re Romy?’ Callum asks sharply. His sneaking suspicion was right: the girl he found under a tree, half-dead and possessed. The girl he and Kira followed into Whiteland, who kidnapped and killed her own dad. The girl, he thinks with a shuriken of dread, who remembers nothing, and has never been told. This is the girl he’s talking to, sent to him by Kira.

Oh, she’s put him in the shit. ‘Kira’s sister?’ he continues, playing for time to think. He somehow needs to avoid the edge of this hellish, bottomless pit. ‘Her little sister?’

Romy’s earrings clink and scrape, clink and scrape again. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Sorry. I didn’t say. Kira’s mentioned me? She’s never mentioned you.’

Of course she hasn’t. She thought he was dead. ‘Yes,’ he says. His mind is a river, swollen by rain and bursting its banks; as soon as it thinks the deluge is over, another torrent falls. Jesus, Kira. He can’t take it in. Not as fast as he needs to in order to act. ‘She’s told me about you. And in answer to the question I didn’t let you finish, the message makes sense. At least a bit.’

An image of Romy flickers like a deleted scene in his mind. Scratching. Flailing. Growling. Wild. Callum blinks it away. He really needs to act. To think, to plan. Kira must be right about the link to the huldra, but he hadn’t expected the fallout so soon. His mum only found out this morning, and sensed he’d found Kira this afternoon.

‘Tell me what happened,’ he says. ‘Then tell me where you are.’

Romy’s words come in fits and bursts. Callum’s face grows taut. His stomach muscles clench. She was explaining all this to Kira, she adds, because she didn’t know what to do, who to call. There was a crash, though, and then nothing. It was like Kira had dropped the phone and walked off.

‘I could hear the shouting, though.’ Romy sounds as though she’s swum the Channel, with dumbbells in each hand. ‘And music that sounded like that Ragnarok song, you know. Or maybe you don’t.’

Callum rubs his forehead. ‘I do.’

‘Okay.’ Romy swallows. ‘Okay. Yeah. And then—then the call died. Like I said, I never got back through. She sent one message, like twenty minutes later.’ She sighs. Callum has a flash of her waving her hand, searching for words like her sister. ‘And, I guess, here we are.’

Here we are, indeed. Callum shuts his eyes. It’s as clear as the shit, and the bottomless pit: manipulation and murder, repeat. What’s not clear is why, and what he should say. What he should do. He can see why Kira told Romy to call him, but everything inside him has sunk through the floor.

He’s lost. More lost than paradise, but Romy is waiting for him to respond. Until they can contact Kira, she needs him.

‘I need to figure this out,’ he stalls. Getting up, he moves over to stare at the night. Snow flings itself at the window, like desperate summer moths. Snow. In Spain. He draws the paisley curtains shut, frowning at the pattern. Ugly. He should have changed them months ago. ‘Listen, Romy,’ he tries again, hoping for inspiration. Maybe, if he keeps talking, the words will form themselves. ‘There’s a lot you don’t know.’

The line bubbles. His Wi-Fi is dire. ‘What’s coming for us?’ Romy asks.

Callum suppresses a groan. Of course she’d start with that: the question he absolutely shouldn’t answer. Sinking into his bobbing chair, he tilts his head to the ceiling. ‘I’m not the best person to answer that.’

‘But Kira said you can help explain.’ Romy’s voice is quiet, but there’s a kraken underneath. Turbulent and straining, it hates being cowed. ‘Do you know what she meant?’

‘Kind of.’ Anything he says, no matter how cautious, will probably blow Kira’s secret apart. Callum grimaces. What did she expect? For him to explain what he can to Romy, protect her, whatever—but without the unpleasant details? They’re the only explanation he has. Callum scrapes his hand across his head, leaving it a bristled surprise. ‘Kind of,’ he repeats. He’s already said it once; if he backtracks, it only spawns more lies. ‘But there’s a lot you need to know before you’ll understand.’

Romy’s sigh sounds like relief, and he winces. She wouldn’t be so relieved if she knew what was coming. ‘So you’ll tell me?’ she asks. Callum screws up his face. It’s not just relief; it’s hope. How has this fallen to him?

‘…Yes.’ He pushes the word through his teeth. ‘But not on the phone. After what you’ve told me, it’s a bad idea. I guess Kira thought so, too, if she wanted you to come to me. I’d come to you, but…’ He glowers round at a knock on the door. ‘But you need to get away. Once the police find out what happened at the guesthouse, they’ll want to talk to you, and keep you nearby, if they don’t arrest you straight off.’ Another knock pounds. ‘I’m busy!’ he shouts. ‘Sorry, what?’

‘I said I figured that out.’ Romy skitters into sarcasm. Annoyance flares inside him, and gutters. She’s been through hell. ‘I look guilty. I know. I left after I talked to Kira, and got on the Tube. I’m in Hyde Park. I…’ It’s there again, the roiling kraken. Carefully managed hysterics. She takes a quaking breath. ‘I was waiting to see what you’d say, if you’d say anything, but I took all my things with me. Where are you?’

‘Wait.’ Callum lifts a hand, as if she’s there to pause. ‘Don’t come here. I’ve changed my mind. If the police do want to find you, they’ll start by tracking your phone.’ He pinches his eyebrows together. ‘I think. They’ll look at your call log, see my number, and track it here, so if you’re with me, you’ll get caught. They’d know you were in Spain from your flight, but that’d make you a sitting duck.’

He taps on the table, jiggling his knee. ‘I’ll meet you somewhere neutral, and we’ll leave our phones behind. I have another one. All right? I’m getting a plan. Right now. Finally.’ He waves a fanfare at the air. ‘Stay on the phone.’ He tugs his Mac from the folder volcano. ‘I need to figure this out. It should work. But Romy?’

The girl breathes in, a hesitation. He probably sounds like he’s springing a curfew. He certainly feels like a guardian. ‘Yes?’

‘You realise I’m not some superman?’ He opens the Mac and starts to search. ‘I can’t fix anything. All I can do is help you understand. I’m the only one Kira can trust, because I’m the only one she knows who knows, but I can’t make it go away.’ He slots the phone between his ear and shoulder, typing with both hands.

Romy laughs, a humourless burst. Callum flinches. ‘And I know nothing, so you’re one up regardless.’ She sounds like a cannon, about to get loose. The deleted scene returns: scratching, breaking, screaming. Kira’s gouged face. ‘I thought the guesthouse was isolated, but from what you’re both saying, it’s this whole big thing.’ She pauses. ‘I don’t need Superman. I need…’ Another pause. ‘Yoda.’

Callum stops typing. ‘Lower the bar.’

Romy huffs. The sound is damp. ‘Tyrion Lannister? You drink and know things?’

Despite himself, Callum snorts. ‘Good enough.’ He focuses back on the screen. He helped Kira a year ago, and he’ll help her sister now. If Whiteland’s breaking out, she needs it. ‘I’ll do what I can.’

‘Tha—’

‘On one condition.’

‘What?’ Romy asks at once.

Callum’s humour fades as fast as it came. How did things change so quickly? ‘You help me find your sister.’