up at him and smiled wanly.
‘You need a shave,’ was the first thing she said.
Cyrus dropped into the chair opposite her with a sigh. ‘I’ve been kind of busy.’
It was only then that he noticed the slim silver blade leaning against the leg of her chair.
‘Expecting someone?’ he asked, nodding in its direction.
‘Something,’ his mother stated drily. ‘They’ll be coming.’ As she said it she took a sip of her coffee.
‘Is that what you wanted to see me about?’ he asked, eyeing the red and silver coffee maker behind her. Caffeine would be good right now, might help cut through the sludge of his mind and help him locate some clarity.
‘I need to tell you something,’ his mother said.
He switched his attention back to her, feeling his headache expand into his frontal lobe.
‘I think it’s open.’
He knew she wasn’t talking about the store. ‘You mean the way through?’ he asked, standing and heading behind the counter to the coffee machine. He flicked a switch. The levers and buttons looked familiar to him. ‘I told you, we checked it,’ he said, glancing over at his mother. ‘It was closed. I closed it.’
The coffee began to spring forth from the machine, dripping viscous into his cup. It was like driving a car. He knew what buttons to press to make coffee! It gave him hope for when he got together with Evie – he checked himself – with a girl – that he’d know what buttons to press then too.
His mum waited until he’d stopped frothing the milk for his macchiato. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I don’t think you did close it.’
He set the tiny cup down on the tiny saucer and looked up at her.
‘We went back to that Bradbury place and checked. It was shut.’
She shook her head. Her face looked grey. ‘I know. It did shut. It just opened up someplace else though. Like plugging a hole in a dam, the water burst through somewhere else. Another gateway opened up as soon as the one in the Bradbury building closed.’ She saw the look Cyrus was giving her and hurried on. ‘It would explain a few things’, she said. ‘How you’re here for one. And why there seem to be even more unhumans around than there were before. It can’t all be down to the Originals making more.’
Cyrus picked up his coffee and swallowed it in one gulp, feeling the bitter burn as the liquid hit the back of his throat. He walked back to the table.
‘OK, back up,’ he said, focusing on his mum, registering the instant burst of clarity as the caffeine hit his bloodstream. ‘You made me come all the way across town to ply me with conjecture? Do you have any proof? This whole dam theory doesn’t seem like it holds water. No pun intended.’
She pushed a sheet of paper towards him across the table, giving him an iron-clad stare. It was a print-out of an internet news piece.
NAKED MAN FOUND WANDERING IN BEVERLY HILLS
A man in his early twenties was found naked, wandering the streets in the early hours of the morning. The man, who was carrying no ID, was in possession of a two-foot long sword.
Nice euphemism, Cyrus mused, feeling a momentary stab of disappointment that there was no photo to accompany the piece.
‘I was naked. Where were they expecting me to carry ID?’ he asked, tossing the article back to his mum.
‘Check the date,’ his mother answered, her face serious.
‘What about it?’ he asked, glancing down again.
She stabbed the top of the page with her index finger. ‘That’s the morning after the fight, after you walked through the gateway and we thought you’d died. Just a few hours later.’
He studied the headline once more, trying to manage the thoughts flying around his newly fired-up brain. The fact he’d been found wandering brandishing a sword, or two swords to be precise, was irrelevant, wasn’t it? But she had him on the number of unhumans still on the streets.
He sighed, ‘OK, just say I’m going with you on this, for conjecture’s sake, why wouldn’t it close properly? Tell me that. The prophecy said the way through would be closed didn’t it? So why would it not be?’
Margaret’s voice was calm when she spoke. ‘That’s easy. The way through wasn’t closed, the realms weren’t severed – because you’re not the White Light. You never were.’
He frowned at her. Hard. ‘So what are you saying? That it was Evie all along? That I sacrificed myself for nothing?’