Kira squints awake to morning through the frosted window. So much light. Too much light. Pain in the faint throb of her head. This is why she has blackout blinds; perfect, indestructible blackout blinds. She screws her eyes shut again, digging in her knuckles. This is abominable. Her brain chugs like an old-time steam train. Her neck’s cricked. Three of her toes are starting to cramp. If she’s not in her bedroom, with her blackout blinds, then where on earth did she—

The steam train whistles, pulls in, and stops. Her grogginess departs like a violent sleep twitch. The living room. The sofa. Callum.

Tangled like an inverted princess and the pea, Kira uncoils her stiff limbs and wriggles around. Her shirt smells damp. Her hair is in snarls. The blankets are knotted around them.

Them. Her chest cools and sparks and jumps at once. Last night was real. It can’t have been, but somehow, it is. Callum is here, on the sofa, with his head on his arm and his mouth half-open. He’s got a freckle underneath his jaw. She never noticed.

‘Mmm.’ Slowly, Callum lifts his head. ‘Creepy to watch people while they sleep.’

This is too unreal for embarrassment. ‘I wasn’t.’

‘You were.’ Yawning, he rubs his face. ‘And you missed the New Year.’ He scrapes a bleary hand through his hair. ‘I wasn’t far behind you, but at least I heard the bells.’ He smirks, lazy and tired. ‘You’ve got a thing for suddenly falling asleep.’

Levelly, Kira meets his eyes. ‘You’ve got a thing for letting me.’

Callum holds her gaze, and snorts. ‘Nice to know you haven’t much changed. Your hair’s different, but the rest of you…’ He considers her, mostly covered by the blankets. ‘I guess I’d be more sure if I saw you in jeans. Jeans and boots and a little black coat.’ He tilts his head. ‘Or naked.’

Okay, so embarrassment still has its place. Heat becomes a sauna in its rush to Kira’s cheeks. ‘You beast!’ She slaps his chest. ‘You’re such a pig. Such a man.’

‘Hey!’ Callum laughs, as she slaps him again, the action half-hearted but her chagrin fully blown. She’d thought the pool was dark. ‘It was only once, and underwater at that! You really haven’t changed.’

‘Neither have you.’ Kira shoots him a glare as half-hearted as her slap. She should stand up against objectification, or chauvinism, or something, but she can’t help it; her face is on fire, but his teasing is comforting. It’s familiar, even after a year.

And it holds what they need to say at bay.

‘When I left England, I needed a change.’ Kira flicks her hair, stalling with lightness. Inside, the questions are starting to churn, up to boiling, up to burn. ‘Place, people, clothes, hair. It used to be a lot darker, and for a while I wore hipster dresses and Docs.’ She grimaces. ‘I hate hipster dresses and Docs.’

She glances at Callum, and her lightness sinks. He’s watching her with a deep kind of quiet, such a drop from his laughter that the questions roil. After all this time, he’s here. Alive.

‘How are you okay?’ It bursts from her lips, with so much force that he flinches. ‘Sorry.’ Kira drops her eyes. Heat floods back to her cheeks in waves. ‘I mean…when we were in the boat, I woke up, and you were falling over the edge. All I could see was this woman, laughing and dragging you down. I tried to stop her, but…’ She pushes back the blankets, sitting up cross-legged to face him. Her whole body is heating now, threatening tears at the memory. She clenches her jaw. She cried enough at the bottom of the boat, and besides, he’s alive. ‘I thought she’d killed you.’

Pulling the corners of his mouth taut, Callum looks away.

Guilt surges up. ‘I’m sorry.’ Kira dips her chin, letting her hair fall in front of her face. ‘I should have waited. I know I should have waited, but it just…slipped out.’

Shaking his head, Callum sighs. ‘Ah.’ He runs a hand through his sleep-mussed hair, dragging it down his face. ‘It’s the elephant in the room. Do you like elephants?’

Kira lifts her eyes. ‘Um?’

‘I don’t.’ Callum taps her arm, one, two, three. ‘So it’s fine. Word of advice, though.’ His tone turns dry. ‘Listen to ghosts who warn you off sirens. It’s not the most fun I’ve ever had.’

He drops his scarred hand to the blankets. Kira twists her mouth. If she was more assertive, she’d take it, but before she can decide, it’s rubbing his jaw.

‘What happened?’ she asks, entwining her fingers. Maybe he’ll take hers.

Callum huffs. ‘Oh, it was great. A little while after you fell asleep, someone started singing. I knew I shouldn’t be curious—I knew—but I was. I looked over the edge of the boat, to see if it was coming from the water, and then…’ He frowns, moving his fingers to trace her tattoo. Her skin prickles with a shiver. ‘Then I was so far underwater that I couldn’t see the surface. I don’t remember leaving the boat, and I certainly don’t remember you trying to help. A woman was holding my arms, though, and yeah, she was dragging me down. But what she wasn’t doing was watching me.’ His eyes flick up to hers. A shadow of a smirk dimples his cheek. ‘So I kicked her, and when she let go, I punched her in the face.’

A surprised ‘ha!’ splits from Kira’s lips. ‘You punched her in the face?’ she exclaims. Catching herself, she holds up her hands. ‘Okay; I’m sorry. Go on.’ She bites her lip hard. ‘I just…you punched her in the face?’

Callum nods. Trying not to grin, Kira turns down her lips, a rolling nod of approval. ‘Wow.’

‘I thought you’d like that.’ Callum’s smirk only grows, doing nothing to help her amusement. ‘It’d make a great party story, if anyone would believe it. Anyway…’ Teasingly, he meets her eye, setting off another tiny shiver through her skin. ‘After she let go, I started swimming and didn’t look down. I didn’t see where she was taking me, but I guess I wasn’t meant to wake up so soon.’

Kira fights her face straight. ‘Damn light sleepers.’

‘I know.’ Dramatically, Callum sighs. ‘Always foiling succubae’s plans. Who knows what was going to happen. Maybe, once we got wherever we were going, there’d be something to stop me from ever waking up. Maybe she was going to kill me, maybe steal my soul. Maybe’—he wags a finger—‘and this is my personal favourite, she was going to seduce me, make sure I’d never want to leave, and name me king of the merpeople.’

Kira cocks her head. ‘Like Aquaman?’

Callum winks. ‘Wouldn’t that be great. Either way, she didn’t follow me.’ He pulls down the corners of his mouth: search me. ‘I’ve often wondered why.’

‘Probably because you punched her in the face.’ Kira’s smile wins out; again, she can’t help it. This is so impeccably them. ‘She was a siren. A wrinkled, ugly one, but she won’t have enjoyed an abusive seductee. It doesn’t make sexy folklore.’

‘Sexy folklore?’

‘Hang on.’ An image pops up like a flash card. Pushing out her lips, Kira frowns. ‘If you got away, why didn’t you reappear? I was watching the river for a long time, but I never saw you come back up.’

Callum shrugs. ‘Whiteland worked its magic? I barely reached the surface before I ran out of breath.’ His face tightens briefly, the quick flick of pain. ‘I was halfway to fainting, and it took me a bit to realise that I wasn’t in Whiteland. I was, I don’t know, fifty metres off a beach, and the waves were pushing me toward it. Just picture the faces.’ He smiles, small, subdued. ‘A man appears out of the sea, wearing jeans and a T-shirt that says Am I Alive? I felt like a rare type of fish. Or a dragon.’

Kira flashes her eyebrows, picturing away. The image is perfect: an exhausted Callum, crawling from the shallows, giving a weak yet jaunty wave before wandering away. The incredulity of the onlookers, the silence left in his wake. The sodden, sluglike trail of water that he would have traipsed around, the wide-eyed, confused attempts to determine where he was. However the scene played out, it’ll have been far funnier than hers.

‘So where were you, if not Whiteland?’ she asks, focusing back on Callum. He’s toying with a tassel on a fox-patterned cushion, looking around the cluttered room. Sunlight glints off the television, rainbow colours spinning off the crystal in the window. ‘Me and Romy landed in London. New Year’s Eve, lots of fireworks, lots of people.’

Callum huffs a laugh. ‘Subtle.’ The laugh becomes a yawn, and he stretches. ‘Ah, I don’t envy you that. And I didn’t think there were other ways out of Whiteland, but there you were, and there I was. In a tiny town in Croatia. Near where they filmed Game of Thrones.’

Kira blinks at him.

He tips his hands. ‘Fair enough, not a fan. Anyway, it was freezing, and the water felt like death.’ He shudders once. ‘I couldn’t believe there were people on the beach. I sat on the sand for a bit, trying to ignore them while I recovered, and just as I was psyching myself up to leave, a woman came along. Tapped me on the shoulder, asked me if I was all right. She tried three different languages before hitting English, and when I said no, not really, she asked why. I asked where I was, she gave me some unpronounceable name, and when I asked where that was, she said Croatia.’

He stretches wider, screwing his eyes up for another colossal yawn. ‘That’s when I realised I was well and truly fucked.’

Kira slots her hands under her head, resting them on the sofa. ‘At least you were somewhere pretty.’

‘Yeah.’ Tilting his head side to side, Callum nods. ‘Yeah, that’s true. I could have landed in Glasgow.’

‘Or the middle of the outback.’

‘Okay, I got lucky.’ Callum rolls his head along the couch-back toward her. ‘Anyway, I thanked the woman, asked her where the nearest airport was—she was very confused at the question, mind, but told me anyway—and after more or less convincing her I was going to be fine, I saluted the sunbathers and set off to find a phone.’

Kira sits up again. ‘To call who?’

‘Ah.’ Callum flashes his eyebrows. ‘This is where it gets interesting. I called my mother.’ He looks up at her. ‘And she wasn’t surprised.’

Kira frowns. ‘What?’

Thoughtfully, he resumes his tracing, up and down her tattoo. ‘My mother knows about Whiteland.’

‘She what?’

‘She explained when she flew over with my passport. Turns out, she’s always known.’ Callum lifts his hands, and drops them down. ‘Typical. The village is one of the gateways, and wherever there’s a gateway, there are “watchers.” People who know, and people who have contact with someone inside.’

Slowly, Kira nods. It’s pretty much as she thought: everyone watching her family, from the moment they arrived. ‘So your mother’s a watcher. What does that mean?’

‘It means she can do things.’ Callum makes air quotes on the word “things.” ‘Which I’ll tell you about another time. They sound fun, but they’re bloody irritating.’ He lifts a tangle of her hair. ‘And that, as they say, was that. I went home, hit a dead end trying to find you, and went back to university. I tried to carry on from there, but obviously never managed. Without social media, a last name, or a hometown, I was a modern day rock-pushing Sisyphus.’

Kira watches his fingers curl her hair. ‘And the village never spoke.’

‘Nope.’ Callum shakes his head wryly. ‘Nobody I talked to would admit to knowing a thing. All of you had been wiped from the hotel—records of your arrival, credit cards, the lot. All your things had gone, too, although Hazal claimed you took them when you left. I pointed out that I was with you when you left, but she wouldn’t budge. Nobody would. It was as if none of it ever happened.’ His lungs empty in a gusting sigh. ‘But there you go. Whiteland was exasperating. Your turn.’

Nearly. She went through it all herself last night. ‘You never told me you were at university.’ Geography. Sociology. She’d bet her life on something vague. ‘What do you study?’

Callum grins, almost cunning. ‘Philosophy.’

For a moment, his smugness strikes her as odd. He winks, and suddenly, Kira remembers: the conversation in the boat. ‘Oh, you’re unbelievable.’

‘I’m doing a master’s now.’ Callum’s smug grin broadens. Clearly he’s remembering too. ‘Thought about leaving after the bachelor’s, but I couldn’t stay away. I love Madrid. It’s where I met Ron, before he dropped out. A book-worthy coincidence, really. I never thought the world was so small.’

Above them, the ceiling groans. Callum glances up. Someone, Kira thinks with a pang, is waking up. Their time alone is fraying. ‘Well, that explains the shirt.’

‘Precisely.’ Callum nods once. ‘What about you, milady?’

Banishing the pang, Kira tries for a smile. ‘I’m trying everything, with a major in English.’

Callum’s eyes drift down. ‘Including art?’ He taps her wrist. ‘You got a tattoo. It made me sure last night it was you.’

So he did notice what he was tracing. It would be kind of hard not to, but still. He might not remember the significance. ‘I felt like I should.’ Kira spares it the briefest of glances. A sketch of a tree trunk, four branches, a line. ‘I don’t like thinking about what happened, but I wanted a reminder.’ She waves a hand, a gesture of grandeur. ‘A mark of the world that consumed my life, or something equally pretentious. Of how small we are. You know.’ She averts her eyes. ‘How easily we can be washed away.’

Callum taps her arm, one, two, three. ‘Memento mori.’

Kira shrugs. ‘I guess.’ She turns her arm over. It needs to be there, but she doesn’t like to see it. It hisses of every unanswered question, and everything she’s lost. ‘We saw the symbol so many times, and I saw it even after I lost you, so it seemed to sort of fit. Even if it is masochistic, or macabre, or whatever. I wish I’d asked someone what it meant.’ She frowns. ‘Every time I thought of it, it seemed to run away.’

Staring at the place where the ink had been, Callum opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. ‘Just another part of Whiteland, thinking on its own.’ Lips apart, he shakes his head. ‘It’s actually been hanging in the kitchen for years. A sketch on the wall. Like you, I never thought to ask what it was.’

Kira’s eyebrows fly. ‘Really?’

‘Yep.’ Dryly, he meets her widening eyes. ‘I know. I barely noticed it until I got home. Mum doesn’t know what it means, but she assumed it didn’t matter who saw it. You either know about Whiteland or you don’t.’ He lowers his gaze to Kira’s arm. ‘I couldn’t understand why she wanted it there, but now that you…’ He looks up again. His eyes narrow, then flick away. His struggle for words is obvious, for a question that doesn’t stumble down a pit he shouldn’t fall into. ‘What made you…’

Wriggling out of her stale shirt, Kira draws the blankets up to her chin. ‘I wasn’t as lucky as you,’ she murmurs. Hesitating, deliberating, she rests her head on his shoulder. He works his arm around her, and she bites at her cheek. Reliving this, she’s going to need the comfort.

The aftermath of his disappearance. The peculiar bishop-fish, and his promises of help—which must have been brutal, barefaced lies. Being rescued by Klaus, the man from the grasslands. Spending the night in a village of tents, nestled in a grove of trees.

Outside, doors slam. Cocooned in the blankets, Kira burrows down. Traffic trundles past. It roots her. She’s safe. She’s on the outside. It’s New Year’s Day, and it snowed last night, and through the windows, the world is white. Vero’s air humidifier hums. She’s safe.

Kira sighs, and carries on. Taking a horse through Monte Yuno, with the devils and the demons and the dead. Bursting out onto the ice plains, following the wolves. The tremendous frozen corridor. The horse failing, and the wolf in its place.

Callum’s eyebrows soar, but Kira shrugs. Just another part of Whiteland, thinking on its own.

Then comes the worst. The pain that feels so hollow, but at the same time, so full. The wolf flying across the ice. Running toward her mum and Romy, their dark standoff stark. Arriving too late to save her dad.

Watching her mum fade out.

Kira’s voice cracks and stalls. She whispers the words about the wolf, and quiets. God, how Whiteland screwed them all.

The ceiling creaks again, and again. Kira leans into Callum’s shoulder. The morning has worn on, the sun bright enough to banish the window-frost, and this moment—this necessary moment, after so much nothing, of peace, of quiet, of their otherworld life—will soon be snatched away.

‘I’m sorry,’ Callum murmurs into her hair. ‘I really—’

‘It’s fine.’ Kira cuts him off. Turning her head, she softens the words with the tiniest of smiles. ‘I don’t want to sound strange, or uncaring, but I’ve had a year of sympathy. You don’t have to give me any more.’ And it’d be really great if you didn’t. ‘Just let me finish.’ She pokes his arm. ‘I need to get it out.’

Callum’s mouth crooks up to the side. ‘Okay.’

After the worst comes England. London, after she and Romy emerged from the woods like dogs among the deer. Hospitals. Doctors. Police. It passed in a dark, murky blur: Who are you? What happened? Where are your parents? How did you get here? Where do you live?

Devon. Gran and Gramps, taking them home. More questions. More police. The beginning of an endless, circular attempt to find Anna and Mathew McFadden.

‘Did they get anywhere?’ Callum asks.

‘No.’ Kira rubs her tired eyes. ‘I could have told them that at the start, but it would have made everything worse.’

Callum huffs. ‘I can imagine. Lally clammed up. Whiteland’s got it like—’ He mimes something crushed in a fist.

‘I figured.’

As alive as Whiteland is, it couldn’t risk discovery. She realised this early on, when she heard the hotel were claiming they vanished, and the village had nothing to say. Not a mention of the man who vanished with them, or the woman who never came home. She supposed the village would never speak.

And neither would the world.

‘I’m surprised you didn’t make the news.’ Callum scratches the back of his head. ‘Causing a scene in the middle of London, wrapped in furs and looking like death. You should have been riddles for years, but no.’

Kira tilts her head toward him. ‘Does that really seem strange?’ She shrugs. Upstairs, Macy’s coffee machine growls. Her breath hitches. They’re running out of time. ‘Whiteland silenced a village. Why not a city? I don’t know how it works, but it did, and I’m glad.’

It meant she could go back to sixth form. It meant that she could leave. Romy slipped back to her caustic mind, facing off the world with mood swings and music, but Kira couldn’t be so graceful. She couldn’t wait to get away. This life…it no longer felt important. The friends, the parties, the beach, her job. How could she spend weekends selling paint, when everything was desolate, and she’d survived another world? How could she constantly dodge the questions, slipped softly in by her grandparents at every opening? How could she constantly fend off the looks, from the neighbourhood who thought they knew the worst, and understood?

The worst was not her missing parents. The worst was all of it.

She couldn’t take it. She couldn’t stay there, in her childhood town, with the memories and the ghost of herself. Here was where she crashed her bike, when Anna taught her to ride. Here was where she’d paint on good days. Here was where she’d paint on bad days. Here was where she caught Romy and a boy, where their batty cousins fell off the pier, where Mathew liked to go for a beer, where they went on her eighteenth birthday.

Too much. She couldn’t do it, living two miles from home, knowing what she knew. She couldn’t keep pretending, as much as she tried, that she hoped her parents would be found. Whiteland was the catalyst, for change, metamorphosis, ruin. From that, there was no going back.

‘So I left.’ Kira’s voice shrivels to a breath. Soon, it’ll be over. Soon, she’ll be done. ‘I guess me and Romy got closer, but she didn’t need me to stay. She never needs anyone. I left to be a stranger.’ She sighs. ‘In a morbid way, it was perfect.’

For a moment, Callum is quiet. The Nespresso machine growls again, juddering the ceiling. A brave wood pigeon hoots in the cold. The smell of coffee curdles her fairly fragile stomach. She could do with an omelette, or a very large gin.

‘Christ,’ Callum murmurs eventually, shaking his head against hers. ‘That’s…’

Kira tilts her head to look at him. ‘I know.’

‘It’s not perfect.’ His throat works, and his jaw hardens. ‘None of it even comes close. That place screwed us over. We’re alive, sure, but we’re not the same.’

He meets her eyes. Kira’s breath skips. They’re close, so close. She can smell his skin. In a book she read not long ago, the girl, caught by surprise, realised why it’s called eye “contact.” Now, she understands. Callum’s eyes seem to darken, the brown growing deeper. Too loud, Kira swallows. She’s never been so aware of her lips, of the inside of her mouth. Did his arm just tighten?

Yes. Callum’s fingers brush her cheek, all trace of humour gone. He’s watching her, deepening—

A rude vibration makes them jump.

‘For the love of…’ Callum shuts his eyes, tipping back his head. ‘I hate my phone. I’m sorry.’

Kira looks away. The quacking isn’t exactly dulcet, and as Callum digs around the sofa, she buries her mouth in the blankets. Her heart is chattering, birdlike. Their miniscule moment has passed.

Shooting her an unreadable look, Callum puts the phone to his ear. ‘Andre?’

A barrage opens fire. A rampage of words, a flurry of oaths. Callum winces. ‘Yes, I know. I’ve caused you to panic, I’ve ruined your life. You could have rung me earlier, you know. You had that power.’ He listens to a second, quieter barrage, more of a scuffle than the Battle of the Somme. ‘Yes, Andre. Ten minutes. Twenty, if I get lost. Yes, you can trust me this time.’ He scrapes a hand down his face. ‘Yes, Andre. Bye, Andre.’

Ten minutes. Twenty, if he gets lost. Horror, desperation, sadness, dread, riding storm-battered waves through her chest. Kira makes herself breathe. He’s leaving already.

‘That was Andre.’ Callum looks up at her, awkwardly shoving his phone in his jeans. His expression is a blend: the universal face for typical, combined with what can you do? ‘The other guy from last night. We have a flight to catch, and he’s worried I’m going to make us miss it.’ He attempts a smile, but it doesn’t work. He gives it up at once. ‘I’m sorry.’

Kira bites down hard on her cheek. Breathe. She won’t make a fuss; she won’t make it harder than it has to be. She was a naive teen in Switzerland. Whiteland made her an adult.

‘I know.’ Composing herself, she forces a smile. ‘At least we know what happened, at least we know we’re alive, and at least’—the smile becomes genuine, wry—‘I know I didn’t imagine it all.’ She puts her arms around his neck, hugging him tight and pulling away before the storm can return. At least Whiteland didn’t take everything.

But god, if he could stay.

‘Don’t you dare disappear.’ Callum battles with the blankets. The war is won far too quickly, and stiffly, he clambers to his feet. ‘We’re so not done here. Where’s your phone?’

Reluctant to leave her nest, Kira takes his proffered hand. It’s warm, and makes her ache, and she quickly lets it go. ‘What’s your full name?’ she asks. Her bag lies skewed in the hallway, and she crouches for a rummage. Many missed calls. Wonderful. She hands her starry phone to Callum. ‘The bishop-fish shrieked something, but I couldn’t remember what. Something like Lee?’

Callum fiddles with her contacts. ‘Close enough.’ Returning the phone, he sticks out his hand. ‘Callum Reeve. Pleased to meet you.’

His other hand is calloused, hard and smooth. It burned in the fire in Erik’s home, before she was chased out of town. ‘About time we got acquainted.’ Nodding curtly, Kira shakes. ‘In the usual way, I mean. Kira McFadden.’ A smile breaks, and as sad as she is, she dips a curtsey and lets it. ‘I do hope we stay in touch.’

‘You can count on it, milady.’ Releasing her hand, Callum bows his head, and doffs an invisible hat. ‘If you so desire, do visit me in Madrid. Preferably before our semesters begin. For now’—he moves to the door, his reluctance almost jauntily masked—‘I fear I must take my leave. Will you see me out?’

Reluctance masked by jauntiness. Kira’s heart is too hot, beating too fast, but she’s not a little girl anymore. ‘I will.’ She dips into a second curtsey, sweeping his discarded coat neatly off the floor. ‘On one condition: reassure me every so often that the crazier parts were real.’

Callum shrugs into his coat. ‘No problem.’ He meets her eyes, and stops. ‘Hey.’

He opens his hands a little. Kira takes them in, and smiles. ‘Of course.’ Closing the gap between them, she wraps her arms around his waist. He enfolds her, resting his forehead on her parting. Breathing in, she shuts her eyes, contorting her face into a coil. He’s leaving. Breathe. He’s alive. Breathe.

Warmth. His chest moving. The last of him.

Smoothing her face, Kira pulls away. ‘Don’t you dare disappear,’ she says.

Callum laughs. ‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’ Opening the door, he steps outside. Pulls up his collar, peers at the sun. ‘I’ll see you soon, Kira.’ Squinting through the glare, he offers her a last, Callum-ish grin. ‘I meant it about visiting. Either that, or I’ll wind up at your door and wreak havoc.’

‘Deal.’ Kira leans against the wall. ‘We’re good at havoc.’

Callum doffs his hat again. ‘That we are.’

One hand raised in a wave, he turns to trudge through the slush. A few paces and he turns the corner; a last look, and he’s gone.

Sun glitters on the cobbles. The bright snow is melting. With a sigh, Kira shuts the door.

‘Who was that?’ Macy ambles past, making a careful beeline for the kitchen. ‘Ow.’ She puts a ginger hand to her head. ‘Too loud. Coffee hasn’t worked. Is it the guy from the couch? Did he leave?’

The fridge door opens. ‘Just…’ Kira shrugs uselessly. Just what? There’s no “just” about any of this, and all at once, she’s exhausted. ‘Someone I used to know.’

Macy emits a vague ‘hmm.’ Kira stays where she is, watching the door. Is it likely? No. The sounds of scavenging clatter on, and she digs her nails into her palms. Would she love it to be? More than anything.

Callum doesn’t come back. She didn’t expect him to; she hardly let herself hope. It’s something from a film, or a book, or a song. The real world isn’t that fair.

With her throat aching, she turns away.