Zoe’s rapid awakening from the moonlight of the nightmare city to the morning glow bleeding in past her curtains had been particularly disorienting. All the same, she had never in her life felt so glad to see the dishevelled mess of her bedroom as she had in that moment.

Resisting the urge to immediately roll out of bed, she kept her body still, allowing herself the merest flex of her little finger by way of reassurance as she ran back through the night’s events in her mind and forced herself to commit them to memory.

Dreams were often slippery things, after all. Although she still technically had no real world proof that her experiences had been anything more than suspiciously consistent fantasy, the last thing she wanted was to forget something that might later turn out to be meaningful.

Replaying everything in her head again and again until she felt confident enough to move, she reached out for the notepad and pencil she’d been keeping on her bedside table. With both in hand, she carefully pushed herself into a sitting position and started to write down everything that she remembered.

It was a trick she’d picked up whilst researching how to control her dreams in her search for Kit’s tower. The notes themselves weren’t especially important, but – for whatever reason – the mere act of putting them to paper seemed to affix the memories more permanently in her mind.

Once she was done, Zoe flipped the notepad closed, replaced it on her bedside table, and finally pulled herself out of bed. Stifling a yawn, she set about getting dressed. Tights, skirt, t-shirt, jumper… Throwing her clothes on without any great deal of thought, she pulled back the curtains and headed out onto the landing, inwardly quite thankful all this had happened on a Saturday and not a school day.

‘Morning, Dad!’ she called out as she reached the top of the stairs, pausing on her way down to pet the excitable ball of sandy-coloured fluff waiting near the bottom. Scout’s tail started wagging before her hand even reached his fur, and the dog let out a short, happy bark at her touch.

‘Afternoon, Sunshine,’ came the deep, rumbling response. Frowning, Zoe followed it through to the kitchen, cheerfully panting dog trailing in her wake.

Her dad was sat at the breakfast table, gazing out at the small, sun-bathed yard through a shimmering windowpane spattered in droplets left over from last night’s rain. A cold cup of coffee sat untouched by the man’s broad right hand, newspaper with a half-finished crossword by his left.

‘Afternoon...​?’ Zoe queried, glancing down to Scout. ‘I… didn’t realise it was quite that late. Must have slept in…’

In truth, it may well have still been late morning when Zoe had finally escaped the City and woken up, but, wanting to be thorough, she had been sure to take her time in her note taking, and she hadn’t exactly stopped at any point to check the clock.

‘Figured you probably needed the sleep,’ her dad replied, eyes still fixed out the window. He looked awfully tired himself. ‘Coffee?’

‘I was actually gonna meet up with Eirene for coffee at some point,’ Zoe answered, ‘but… I could definitely go for a slice of toast.’

Her dad nodded and slowly pushed himself to his feet. Zoe took a seat and watched the man carefully as he made his way over to the kitchen counter.

‘What is it?’ she asked. Her dad hadn’t looked particularly lively for quite a while now, but this morning… afternoon… he seemed especially downbeat.

‘The um…’ the man replied, frowning as he took a moment to remember the basic order of retrieving bread and turning on the grill. ‘The hospital called…’

Zoe’s ears pricked up, and immediately her chest was awash with worry and anticipation.

‘What did they say…?’ she asked, uncertain if she even really wanted to hear the answer.

‘Well…’ her dad sighed, his speech slow and distracted, ‘your brother, um… His doctors are saying he’s starting to… uhh “deteriorate”…’

Zoe swallowed, the lump in her throat refusing to budge.

‘Although,’ her dad continued, ‘apparently he has been for um… for a while, just…’ The man paused as he put the bread on the grill tray, taking a second to lean against the counter and exhale. ‘It’s getting worse.’

‘How… much worse…?’ Zoe asked.

‘…Worse…’ her father answered, his quiet response steeped in such a tone of grim finality that Zoe didn’t need to probe any further.

‘If… they can’t find out what’s wrong with him soon… Find out why he’s getting weaker, then…’ His voice trailed off, and Zoe let her gaze fall back down to Scout as she heard the tray clattering back under the grill.

The dog was some kind of mongrel, but bore such distinctive features that most people mistook him for a designer hybrid. Whatever his true lineage, he may just as well have been a border collie–golden retriever cross for how he looked and behaved.

Quite possibly grasping for any distraction she could find, Zoe couldn’t help but notice that the knot of the red, patterned neckerchief around the dog’s neck was askew. She reached down to fix it.

It had been Kit that had bought it to replace the dog’s old collar. Said it “gave him character”. Made him more part of the family than just a pet.

Despite herself, as she carefully loosened and retied the knot, Zoe couldn’t help but smile at the memory.

‘He’ll get better, Dad,’ she said. ‘It’s Kit we’re talking about: he’s got too much energy to give up.’

‘It just doesn’t make any sense…’ her dad sighed. ‘He was fine until the fever, and he hadn’t been anywhere or done anything out of the ordinary leading up to it…’ He screwed his eyes shut. ‘I should have just taken him to the doctor right away. It’s what your mother would have done… Maybe then… Maybe then it wouldn’t have…’

The man’s eyes opened again as he trailed off, glancing apologetically across to Zoe, who was regarding him with an uncritical, sympathetic look. Kit’s initial fever had been mild at worst: there hadn’t been any obvious reason at the time to think much of it.

‘Sorry, Sunshine,’ he concluded, forcing a smile for his daughter’s sake as he waited for the toast to grill. ‘You said you’re going out somewhere with Eirene? How’s she doing these days?’

Zoe exhaled slowly through her nose, doing her best to put her family’s mounting grief to one side for the moment as her father changed the topic.

‘Only the Mariner,’ she replied, ‘nowhere special. We just haven’t had that much time to catch up this week, I guess…’ She nodded her head to the side and let her gaze fall to the tablecloth. ‘She’s fine, though. I think. Might go for a ride along the coast after if the weather holds. Take my mind off stuff, you know.’

Her dad nodded in understanding, pulling the tray out to flip the half-toasted bread before sliding it back under the grill.

Zoe frowned to herself as something occurred to her, idly reaching down to stroke Scout’s neck as the family dog came up alongside her chair. The thought of taking her bike down the coastal path had brought something that boy had mentioned in passing last night bubbling to the surface of her mind.

‘Say, uhh… Dad?’

‘Mm?’

‘The north cliffs just outside of town,’ she asked.

‘What about them?’

‘I was just wondering,’ she answered, thinking back to exactly what it was that Dorian had said, ‘are there any like… old tunnels or anything up around that way?’

‘Tunnels?’ her father frowned, thinking to himself for a moment before pulling the tray out from under the grill and retrieving a plate for the toast. ‘Not that I know of. Unless you’re talking about fox dens and rabbit warrens…?’

‘No,’ Zoe shook her head, ‘someone just mentioned something about it yesterday, and it got me curious. Sounded like they meant something more historic. Man-made. You know.’ She turned to watch the back of her dad’s head as he buttered her toast for her. ‘Maybe an old drainage system, or, I dunno, some kind of air raid shelter? Holmstowe was bombed at one point, right?’

‘Sure,’ her dad answered over his shoulder, ‘during the First World War, but not on purpose: they were aiming for the Scousers or something and got blown way off course. Holmstowe wasn’t even an actual target, so I don’t think there were ever any shelters built here.’ He placed the buttered toast back under the grill just long enough for the butter to melt before re-plating it and walking it over to where Zoe was sitting.

‘Closest thing to the cliffs on that side of town’s that old research lab that shut down way back in the ‘80s,’ he said, putting the plate down in front of her. ‘Seraphim Pharmaceuticals or something…? Can’t imagine a drug company would have bothered digging out any tunnels, though.’

‘Seraphim…?’ Zoe asked, raising an eyebrow as the word conjured images of the nightmare priest in that awful, twisted cathedral. ‘What, like… six-winged angels?’ She glanced down at her plate. Butter melted into the toast, just how she liked it. ‘Oh. Um, thanks.’

‘No idea,’ her dad replied, resuming his seat and taking a sip of his coffee before wrinkling his nose when he found it to be cold. ‘Your mother was the God-botherer, not me.’ He let out a long and nostalgic sigh before taking another go at his coffee. ‘Could sure do with someone in the Almighty’s good books right about now…’

‘Yeah…’ Zoe nodded, picking up her toast and taking a bite. ‘I miss her too.’ She let that thought hang in the air for a minute as she ate. Even as her mind lingered on the potential connection between her dream and the lab along the north cliffs, she didn’t want to cheapen her sentiment by breezing past it right away.

She finished her toast and sat back in her chair, noting that her dad had given up on his coffee and returned to staring out through the window instead.

‘Guess I’ll take a look at that old lab on my way past, just in case,’ she said, getting to her feet and taking her plate over to the sink. ‘See if there’re any Heritage or National Trust signs talking about tunnels or anything.’

‘Well, let me know if there are,’ her dad replied, eyes still on the yard, ‘because it’d be a new one on me… Just make sure you’re back by five, okay? I want us to have time to visit your brother before tea.’

‘Yeah,’ Zoe nodded, heading for the kitchen door and giving Scout another pat along the way. ‘Will do. See you later, Dad.’

‘See you later, Sunshine,’ the man replied, finally glancing Zoe’s way and giving her a gentle, tired smile. ‘And do stay safe out there, won’t you.’